UConn No. 1 overall

It was no surprise when the announcement was made Monday night that the No. 1 women's basketball team is the No. 1 seed for the NCAA Tournament.

Nor was it a shock that the Huskies would play at Gampel Pavilion for the first two rounds in the Trenton (N.J.) Regional.

All that remained unknown was the opponent. That team is No. 16 seed Vermont, the America East tournament champion. The two teams will play at noon Sunday on ESPN2.

It is the 21st time the Huskies have made the Tournament in as many seasons. They are 40-5 in Tournament play since 2000; the berth is the first for the Catamounts in that same amount of time.

"Every night, just give it all on the court … the most effort we can give," said UConn guard Maya Moore. "If we do that, we really feel like we can really accomplish our goal this year."

Their goal? Something that they were unable to do last year: win in the Final Four.

"I think we're just going into the tournament with a different frame of mind, just a different feeling," Moore said. "More confident, just more ready."

Behind closed locker-room doors, the team watched the selection show, as ESPN revealed the bracket game by game, saving the Trenton regional for last. Only on occasion were applause and yells heard - when a Big East team popped up on the screen as one of the 64 teams in the bracket.

At no time were those yells louder than when Rutgers grabbed the No. 7 seed in the Oklahoma City regional. When the Huskies were announced, the players' cheers could be heard from the hall.

At 33-0, the team has a target on its back, one that coach Geno Auriemma believes comes from such intense media coverage. Yet, he said it comes with the territory and that it "never bothered me when you have the record that we have."

This year, he said that he is comfortable with his team and with the bracket.

"There's no drama in our bracket," he said. "You know, last year we had to put up with the drama of two Big East teams being in the same regional. So there's none of that. It's just, you know, get ready to play and go out and play."

If the Huskies win against Vermont on Sunday, the team will play the winner of the No. 8 Florida/No. 9 Temple game on Tuesday, March 24, at 7 p.m.

Still, it's about baby steps.

"So now we have to play well one night at a time for six games," Auriemma said. "If we do, and we play like we played the other 33, then I feel really good about our chances."

Easiest road to the Final Four?

Kara Lawson, ESPN analyst and former Tennessee guard, called the Trenton Regional the easiest part of the bracket during the Selection Show. In response, Auriemma said, half-smiling while on the air, that it was probably bias based on where she went to school.

"Everybody's going to say their region's the hardest," Auriemma said during the ESPN broadcast. "I just think, if I'm just sitting at home watching on TV tonight, 'Man, if I have to hear Connecticut one more time and how much we beat this team and that team by' - I started to get sick listening to you guys. Believe me, there's not going to be any shortage of people wanting to beat us after they heard you guys talk today."

After the show, Auriemma reiterated that he was tired of hearing the comparisons made between teams based on how many points they lost by at the hands of his team.

"I don't know that, if you're Texas A&M and Cal and Florida State - if you're any of the teams in our bracket - I'm sure you take that as an insult," he said. "And they should. But then again, it's people's interpretation, and they can believe whatever they want to believe. You have to play who you have to play."

Big East dominance

UConn and Rutgers are two of seven Big East teams to make the tournament this year. No. 23 Notre Dame, which was one of two teams to lose to UConn by 10 points - the lowest margin of the season for the Huskies - is a No. 7 seed in the Trenton regional. The Fighting Irish will face North Carolina A&T on March 22 on ESPN after the Florida-Temple game.

DePaul also earned a No. 7 seed in the Berkeley Regional. Villanova is a No. 8 seed in the Raleigh region, while Pittsburgh is No. 4 in the Oklahoma City region.

"You know, we played in the toughest league," Auriemma said. "I mean, you look at the Big East and where some of our teams are placed, and we've been dealing with that all year long."

Perhaps the biggest surprise came where Louisville, which lost to UConn in the Big East tournament championship game, was seed No. 3 in the Raleigh region.