College basketball

Double dribble: Women

By GREG AUMAN
Published February 4, 2006

THE BUBBLE STATE

With a month left in the regular season, Florida (16-5), Florida State (13-7), USF (15-7) and Miami (14-7) are all arguably on the NCAA bubble. The Bulls have the highest RPI at No. 26, with the Gators 33rd, the Seminoles 40th and the Hurricanes 45th.

Miami and FSU play each other twice, on Thursday and on Feb. 17, and a season sweep for one team could spell NIT for the other.

Overall wins and losses are huge, of course, but the tricky number for all four teams is conference record - hard to make the NCAA field if you're not at least at .500 in league play. FSU is 4-3, but Sunday's home game against N.C. State is its last against a ranked team; USF is 5-4 and has its last ranked opponent Sunday with a trip to No. 25 St. John's.

On the other hand, UF is 4-4 and their six remaining games include Sunday at No. 21 Kentucky, plus games against No. 3 LSU and at No. 5 Tennessee. Miami, too, is 4-4, with the Seminoles twice and games at No. 23 Boston College and hosting No. 2 Duke.

Quality wins against teams in the RPI top 50? The Bulls and Hurricanes have the biggest edge. Miami has double-digit wins against No. 19-rated Virginia Tech, No. 23 Boston College and No. 36 Hartford, and USF has wins against No. 15 DePaul and No. 29 Notre Dame.

UF and FSU have beaten each other, and the Gators also have wins against No. 35 Temple and No. 41 Vanderbilt. The Seminoles have beaten No. 49 Virginia twice.

Who says North Carolina is the only undefeated team left in the nation? Stop by Eckerd College this afternoon and you can see 19-0 Rollins College, which has won all but one of its games by at least nine points.

Despite their record, the Tars aren't getting much national respect. They're ranked No. 9 in the Division II coaches poll, and worse still, seventh in the South region by the D-II national committee.

Leading scorer Joslyn Giles, a 5-foot-11 guard from Winter Haven, is the daughter of Josh Giles, the former Florida A&M and Polk Community College men's basketball coach who died in 2002. He coached four seasons at PCC after receiving a kidney transplant before retiring in 1999.

If you miss Rollins today, the Tars will be back at Eckerd for the Sunshine State Conference tournament next month.

USF AT NO. 25 ST. JOHN'S, 2 P.M. SUNDAY, CATCH 47: The Bulls have key Big East wins against DePaul and Notre Dame, and the Red Storm (17-4) likely will drop out of the rankings after losing 61-51 to Rutgers on Wednesday. St. John's top scorers, juniors Angela Clark and Kia Wright, were high school teammates in Copiague, N.Y.

FLORIDA AT NO. 21 KENTUCKY, NOON SUNDAY, SUN SPORTS, FSN: A win here helps the Gators a ton, but the Wildcats (15-4) already have beaten Tennessee and have sold out Memorial Coliseum for this game. Still, there's clearly a three-team top tier in the SEC, as both of these schools have been hammered by Georgia, with the Gators losing by 37 last week and Kentucky losing by 34 on Thursday. Kentucky has a local star in freshman LaKwesha Gamble of Winter Haven, but she's played sparingly, scoring 1.7 points off the bench.

.670: Nation's best field-goal percentage, Vandy's Liz Sherwood

.957: Nation's best free-throw percentage, Oklahoma's Chelsi Welch

.506: Nation's best 3-point percentage, Missouri's Carlynn Savant

19: Nation's single-game assists high, Indiana State's Melanie Boeglin

46: Tied for nation's scoring high, Boeglin and Iowa's Crystal Smith

[Last modified February 4, 2006, 00:32:20]