Sari Noga is, according to Rachel Banham, the obsessed one.
Banham, the Gophers guard, was talking about her senior teammate, the one player on the team who is constantly on the Internet, always looking for updates, an amateur NCAA bracketologist.
"She is always telling me about it," Banham said. "But I never look at it. I kinda just wait until it's official."
After an up-and-down season, after a 6-2 finish produced a .500 mark in Big Ten play, the Gophers enter this week's conference tournament in Indianapolis on the cusp of the program's first NCAA tournament bid since 2009.
The team has a solid RPI of 38. Strength of schedule (20th) is good.
Gophers coach Pam Borton said she is convinced that, if nobody played another game, the Gophers would be a tournament lock.
Problem is, there are a lot of games to be played. Chances are upsets will jumble the tournament selection mix. And so the Gophers believe they absolutely have to win their first-round matchup with 11th-seeded Wisconsin to punch an NCAA ticket, something nobody on the current roster has ever experienced.
"At this point we're closer than we've ever been," senior Micaëlla Riché said. "We have a good game for the first round of the Big Tens, and that would give us 20 wins."