Red Flash eager for women's showdown with No. 1 UConn

LORETTO, Pa. -- St. Francis is the patron saint of animals. How unfair, then, that his basketball team should be fed to the wolves -- or the Huskies, as the case may be.

After winning an automatic bid as the Northeast Conference champion, the St. Francis Red Flash won the right to face unbeaten and top-ranked Connecticut in the first round of the NCAA tournament.

"This is an exciting opportunity for us," guard Sami Allison said. "Connecticut is obviously the best team in the country, and it's a great opportunity just to play them."

Just as Connecticut is the clear choice as the tournament's top seed -- the Huskies (33-0) are the nation's only undefeated team and the unanimous choice as No. 1 in The Associated Press Top 25 -- St. Francis is a logical choice as the tournament's bottom seed.

After a 2-7 start, St. Francis came back to finish 19-11, winning both the regular-season and tournament titles in the Northeast Conference. But the NEC was rated 30th out of 31 by CollegeRPI.com and the Red Flash have the lowest RPI (157) of any team in the tournament.

"We weren't very surprised," guard Tonjee Ward said. "We kind of expected we'd be a 16 seed. We're just looking at this as a challenge."

Beating a No. 1 seed in the first round of the NCAA tournament is about as close to impossible as there is in sports. Since going to a 64-team format, no men's team and only one women's team has pulled off that task -- Harvard beat Stanford 71-67 in 1998.

"I tell our ladies, 'If it was a 100 percent guarantee who's going to win that game, they wouldn't bother to play it,"' St. Francis coach Myndi Hill said. "Now a game like this, it might be 99.99 percent -- but we're still going to play like we know we can play.

"I'm not the kind of coach who thinks you can just go out there and have fun against UConn. We do want to have fun, but we want to play them tough. If we lose by 80, then we lose by 80. But we want to play our best in doing so."

That's exactly the attitude the Red Flash need, according to Kathleen Delaney-Smith, who coached Harvard in its win over Stanford.

"I think everybody sort of says no one can beat UConn, so I think their challenge is somewhat greater than mine was against Stanford," Delaney-Smith said. "They have to come up with a game plan where they can believe they can disrupt UConn. Whatever that is -- whether it's a trick defense, something unorthodox -- because, player-for-player, no one in the country can match up and beat UConn. You just absolutely have to believe you can win."

Hill knows the keys to staying with the Huskies: get back in transition, limit their offensive rebounds, don't be afraid to take the first open shot.

She also knows that's easier said than done. Every game plan this year has fallen short, and most of them far short. Twenty-three of Connecticut's 33 wins have been by 30 points or more, and even the Huskies' 86-72 win at Tennessee was closer than the final score.

Hill says the most important thing is not to get overwhelmed in the first few minutes. Even though the players might be a little awestruck playing against stars such as Sue Bird and Diana Taurasi -- "Shoot, I'm even a little excited to be on the same court as Geno Auriemma," Hill said -- if they can keep the score close, they might not be forced into Connecticut's running game.

The tournament also is a learning experience for St. Francis, which has just one senior on its roster. This is the sixth NCAA bid in seven years for the Red Flash, but they have yet to win a game in the tournament.

"We want our ladies to play in that atmosphere, to play those top teams, and learn how to compete in that environment," Hill said. "Maybe next year we can get a 13 or a 14 seed, maybe a 12 or 11, and be in a better position to get that first win."

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On the Net:

St. Francis University: http://www.francis.edu

CollegeRPI: http://www.collegerpi.com