Basketball: Carleton No. 1 in women's championship, Regina dinged for conference championship loss

The recency factor is strong with the seeding for the Bronze Baby. Carleton and Saskatchewan, the winners of the two big conferences, are seeded 1-2 whilst the automatic qualifiers from their conferences, third-seeded Queen's and fifth-seeded Regina, are not potential semifinal opponents.

By the way, whoever in the U Sports office did up the graphic might have wanted to display the teams in a way that illustrated the bracket. For a second it looked like Saskatchewan was playing Cape Breton.

W🏀: The 2017 @ArcelorMittal_D Final 8 wildcard berth has been awarded to the Laval Rouge et Or. Full seeding in the graphic!#CHAMPSZN pic.twitter.com/wepZd9qIwq

— U SPORTS (@USPORTSca) March 5, 2017

Credit Mitchell Blair for intuiting that splitting up the eastern Ontario and the Saskatchewan teams would win the day!

@Jim_Mullin @USPORTSca @NaitSAYger IMHO: Have to seed it so Regina is on one half of draw and Sask on second half. Potential final rematch

— Mitchell Blair (@scruffyregina) March 5, 2017

That leaves us with the following itinerary for Thursday:

• No. 3 Queen's vs. No. 6 Cape Breton, 3 p.m. ET
• No. 2 Saskatchewan vs. No.. 7 Laval, 5 p.m. ET
• No. 4 McGill vs. No. 5 Regina, 9 p.m. ET
• No. 1 Carleton vs. No. 8 Victoria, 11 p.m. ET

In the post-mortem for the whole exercise, Saskatchewan was probably underestimated. Perhaps next time they will be estimated. The Huskies and Cougars, in fact, have the same 18-2 overall record since the third weekend of November. Carleton is 22-2 and Queen's is 20-3 over that span.

Sportsnet 360 will carry the final at 4 p.m. on Sunday.