NCAA Women's Tournament 2012: Four Second-Round Upsets

“Upsets, Upsets!  Get your upsets, here.  Can’t win your pool without some upsets.”

Now that Abacus has your attention, let’s get down to business.

First of all, on your bracket, in pen not pencil, write Baylor six times.  Otherwise you don’t want to win that pool.

And no, Ohio State is not beating them, in Bowling Green, Tennis Whites or anything else.

In fact, you might want to press down real hard with that pen, so that those six picks go through to the 2013 bracket as well.  They’ll be right again, trust your Abacus.

But upsets there will be; also one conference that will shine most brightly—not Baylor’s Big XII either.

Here are four bracket busters bound for the Sweet Sixteen.

South Carolina (5) over Purdue (4) in Bloomington, Ind.

The Purdue Boilermakers, the Big Ten Tournament champs, enjoy home court advantage in this sub-regional and a relatively soft-touch in opening round opponent South Dakota State.

There will be nothing soft about coach Dawn Staley’s battle-tested South Carolina Lady Gamecocks who own a road victory this year in Tennessee’s vaunted Thompson-Boling Arena, assuming they can get by tough Eastern Michigan Saturday.

South Carolina split a pair of early season games with Big Ten competition, topping Illinois and falling by five to another No. 4 seed, Penn State.

The small but scrappy Lady Gamecocks are led by senior guards Markeshia Grant, who exploded for a career high 27 points in the UT win, and La’Keisha Sutton.

Purdue coach Sharon Versyp, whose squad claimed a road win over SEC’s Auburn Lady Tigers back in December, likes to use a small line-up that features two sophomores–KK Houser and Courtney Moses, with senior leading scorer Brittany Rayburn.

But her real challenge will be to involve bigs Sam Ostarello and Chelsea Jones.

Most likely, Garnet and Black will be just disruptive enough to steal a close victory.

Their reward?  A couple of Ogwumikes.

Rutgers (6) over Miami (3) in Spokane, WA

The reasoning behind this one is very simple:

Would you want to travel cross-country with C. Vivian Stringer, Rutgers iconic and curmudgeonly coach, on the heels of a season-ending loss?

Miami coach Katie Meier is just not that intimidating.

The Lady Scarlet Knights will be able to ride with their parents back to campus the next week, since their Regional is just up the road a piece in Rhode Island.

Arkansas (6) over Texas A&M (3) in College Station, TX

Have no worries, President Clinton, Jerry Jones and the rest of Razorback Nation.

Coach Tom Collen’s senior-laden Lady Hogs (how insulting, huh?) are prepared to have a representative stay at the NCAA dinner table this time, after being shut out the last two years.

Even if that means they have to beat the defending national champions on their home floor.

Coach Gary Blair’s Lady Aggies were the second-best team in a Big XII whose field Baylor lapped a couple of times.

Texas A&M seemed to peak for their home rematch with the Lady Bears two weeks ago, in which they came up seven points short.

In some ways that felt like the end of their season.

The biggest obstacle to this “upset” might be A&M surviving Albany Saturday.

Vanderbilt (7) over Duke (2) in Nashville,TN

Finally, an upset that will please the home crowd.

In last year’s regional final, the moment became too big for Baylor’s brilliant freshman point guard Odyssey Sims, and her team fell to defeat.

Expect Duke’s likely Freshman of the Year, post Elizabeth Williams, to gain the same kind of lesson in the same kind of way.

The Lady Commodores’ wily veteran squad, under the direction of classy point girl Jasmine Lister, is just the right group from just the right league to apply the finishing touches.

And y’all thought the stud conference would be the Big East—tell the truth now.

On Abacus’s bracket, Vandy, Kentucky and Tennessee reach the Elite Eight, though all fall at that point.

Betcha can’t guess which No. 1 seed is not in his Final Four!

Whoops, there it is!