By Mel Greenberg

There is no mystery as to who will be the stars of the NCAA women’s basketball tournament selection show Monday night hen the 64-team field is announced on ESPN.

Unbeaten Connecticut (33-0), which has dominated the competition to earn potential acclamation as the greatest of all time, is expected to receive the overall No. 1 seed and be placed as the top team in the Trenton regional.

Two wins there will lead to the Women’s Final Four in St. Louis.

“If we win our next six games, we certainly can be one of the six greatest teams here,” Connecticut coach Geno Auriemma said referring to five previous NCAA championships claimed by the Huskies.

But UConn will still be a bit antsy anticipating what barriers will have to be hurdled to advance to the Final Four.

Connecticut’s appearance in Trenton could bring the state capital of New Jersey its most notoriety since General Washington spent Christmas Eve at a tavern on the banks of the Delaware getting entertained at the expense of a few British troops.

Auriemma isn’t ready to declare his Huskies unbeatable but in a recent TV interview he referenced Germantown Academy’s Caroline Doty, saying of the freshman, “If she hadn’t had hurt her knee (early January), then I’d be ready to say that I really, really like our chances.”

UConn also has sophomore Maya Moore, who has followed in the footsteps of Diana Taurasi as one of the best of all time.

The Huskies’ loaded roster has made Trenton the Forbidden City for the rest of the NCAA hopefuls not wanting any part of UConn until the national semifinals.

Locally, it will be the women’s turn at Villanova and Temple to party Monday night after their male counterparts celebrated their NCAA placements Sunday night.

The most fun, however, will be in West Philadelphia where Drexel will arrive for the telecast only concerned with when the Dragons will pop up on the TV screen.

They already know they are in the field, courtesy of their win over host James Madison Sunday afternoon for the Colonial Athletic Association title that earned a first-ever NCAA bid, which comes automatically with the conference title.

Villanova is not having a public event, but the the Wildcats seem a lock to earn an at-large bid after earning the fourth seed in the Big East tournament and beating Notre Dame in the quarterfinals.

The Owls will host a party even though they are slightly less assured of a similar bid after losing to eventual champion Charlotte in the semifinals of the Atlantic Ten tournament.

However, Temple, under first-year coach Tonya Cardoza, made a strong charge at the close of the regular season and owns solid rankings in the Ratings Percentage Index (RPI).

Cardoza, a former longtime assistant to Auriemma, replaced the legendary Dawn Staley last July after Staley departed for South Carolina.

The high heel will be on the other foot for a change at Rutgers, which will be a host for the first two rounds of the tournament this weekend.

The Scarlet Knights struggled most of the season before becoming NCAA-worthy down the stretch.

However, Rutgers will earn a middle seed, regionally, but as a host gets to play in its own arena.

In previous years, selection night has been a time of distress for coach C. Vivian Stringer. Her team would get a high seed and then get sent to some low-seeded team’s home court to open the tournament.

But her birthday should be a little enjoyable on Monday night.

“I don’t know who is going to get sent to Rutgers, but I do know that they will not be happy,” Villanova coach Harry Perretta said. “I wouldn’t want to be there right now as a visiting high seed because of the way Kia Vaughn has been playing.”

Ironically, remove Connecticut from the equation and suspense is all over the place involving everything else about tonight’s announcement.

There are a bunch of contenders for the other No. 1 seeds, but none of them go by the name of Tennessee, the two-time defending champions.

The Vols experienced their worst season in more than two decades and may not even be among the top 16 seeds.

In an interesting twist, one of the contenders for a No. 1 seed is Duke, whose senior women’s administrator Jackie Silar, is the head of the NCAA tournament committee.

Under operating procedures, Silar cannot be involved in the deliberations when the Blue Devils get discussed.

Should Duke not receive a No. 1 seed and get placed in UConn’s portion of the bracket it will be the first time the chair’s own team got dealt a bad hand after she left the room.

Other teams contending for No. 1 seeds are Maryland, Oklahoma, Baylor, Louisville, Auburn and Stanford.

If UConn is the best team ever, the field will also contain a school with one of the worst entry records of all time after Evansville (15-18) edged Creighton 47-45 to win the Missouri Valley title Sunday.
Conference favorites Liberty (Big South), Stanford (Pac-10), Sacred Heart (Northeast), as mentioned Drexel (CAA), and Wisconsin-Green Bay (Horizon) won automatic bids on Sunday.

However, Boston U. (America East) and Bowling Green (Mid-American) did not and faced tough prospects to earn at-large bids in the field.
Teams previously on the fringe of the bubble were Indiana, Minnesota, Boston College, Richmond, and Georgia.

Other bubble teams seemingly likely for selection were Georgia Tech, South Florida and Mississippi State.

- Mel