Selection Sunday: Men get top seed in East, Women named 3 seed

The women's basketball team might have found out it would get a chance to stay close to home yesterday, but the Blue Devils must deal with one house guest who's crashed more than its share of parties-three-time defending National Champion Tennessee.

Despite a 15-1 regular season record in the ACC, the No. 10 Blue Devils were handed the third seed in the East Region in Greensboro by the NCAA selection committee. Fifth-ranked Old Dominion received the No. 2 seed in the same region while the No. 2 Lady Vols stand as the region's top seed.

"We're okay with it," coach Gail Goestenkors said. "We knew to get to the Final Four, we had to play some great competition and some great teams. I'm just really glad that we've already played [Tennessee] once. That will help us a great deal, and it will help us throughout the tournament.

"[The players] are excited. They really wanted to stay in the East. As soon as we saw we weren't in any of the other three, we knew we were in the East, we were very excited to stay close to home."

While Goestenkors said Duke may have had the inside track to the top seed in the East had it won the ACC tournament, those hopes were dashed when Duke fell to Clemson in the semifinals. Still, the Blue Devils figured they would receive a two seed, since they boast a No. 8 RPI ranking and all six of their losses were to teams that eventually received at least a No. 4 seed.

Instead, Clemson became the ACC's highest-seeded team as the No. 2 in the Mideast, despite five losses in the ACC regular season.

"[The tournament loss to Clemson] really hurt us," Goestenkors said. "We still were potentially a one seed at that point in time, and definitely would have a two seed. The only thing I could think of that [Clemson received a better seeding] was the way they finished. They beat us twice in the last two weeks. They finished a little better than we did."

The Blue Devils will host the Patriot League champion Holy Cross (21-7) at Cameron Indoor Stadium in the first round of the tournament. If Duke advances, it will face the winner of Conference-USA Champion Tulane (24-5) and Atlantic-10 Champion St. Joseph's (22-7).