When we first forecasted the women's NCAA Tournament bracket last month, strength of schedule had a big impact on the seedings because the conference seasons were just getting started and provided little to go on.

CREME'S CROP

Here's how each region of the 2003 NCAA Tournament shaped up in our second bracket projection (with top four seeds listed): East: Dayton, Ohio No. 1 Connecticut, No. 2 Purdue, No. 3 Louisiana Tech, No. 4 Vanderbilt Mideast: Knoxville, Tenn. Tennessee, North Carolina, Penn State, Texas Midwest: Albuquerque, N.M. Duke, Kansas State, Villanova, Georgia West: Stanford, Calif. LSU, Texas Tech, Stanford, Mississippi State Want to put the RPI, rankings and reasoning aside? Skim through our field of 64 cheat sheet. Got a question for Charlie Creme? Click here to sound off. The best questions will be posted later this week. Click here to revisit Creme's first bracket projection in mid-January.

That has clearly changed. In our second bracket forecast (through games of Feb. 17), strength of schedule is still a major criterion -- as it will be with the selection committee. But conference records and some of the head-to-head matchups that the league season provides are now in the mix.

While teams are viewed individually and not as a group or a conference, it's important to know how they fared against one another. For instance, with so many good teams in the SEC all seemingly so close and all playing each other -- and often squaring off more than once -- it's impossible to just look at one team versus another. That's why it was important to examine the records of Georgia, Vanderbilt, Arkansas, Mississippi State, South Carolina and Auburn against the entire group as yet another piece of information to help the process. It was no surprise that the teams that ended up with the higher seeds in this forecast (Georgia, Vanderbilt and Mississippi State) went to the squads with the best record against the entire group.

And since we're on the subject, two SEC teams have been projected as No. 1 seeds this go-round: Tennessee and LSU. The Lady Tigers, whose only loss this season happened more than a month ago, supplant Texas Tech as a No. 1 seed. Unbeaten and top-ranked Connecticut and Duke are the other top seeds.

Based on our projection, the second-seeded Lady Raiders might have to play No. 3 seed Stanford on their home floor to reach the Final Four. That might seem unfair, but it also means Texas Tech -- by the smallest of margins -- is considered the strongest of the No. 2 seeds, and have the opportunity to avoid UConn, Tennessee or Duke until Atlanta. What will really decide that, however, is Tech's regular-season ending homestand against Texas and Kansas State. In fact, the winner of the Texas Tech/Kansas State game and the Big 12 tournament might well decide who avoids the biggest guns come NCAA Tournament time.

That said, Purdue is probably the weakest No. 2 seed, and as such, is stuck with UConn in the East. It might even seem odd that Purdue, the second-place team in the Big Ten, is seeded ahead of leader Penn State, which knocked off Purdue last week. But Purdue's record against top-flight competition (6-1 vs. RPI Top 25, 10 Top 50 wins, according to CollegeRPI.com) was the most compelling of all the data. Those power numbers also gave the Boilermakers the nod over Stanford for the fourth No. 2 seed.

And finally, Duke is once again the top seed in the Midwest. However, this time it is a little easier to see, and came down to which team should be forced to travel. The Huskies beat Duke, so the Blue Devils are Dayton-bound.

Charlie Creme was a writer and editor at Blue Ribbon College Basketball Yearbook for 11 years. He can be reached at cwcreme@hotmail.com.