Women’s college basketball – Get ready for the best day of games in the nonconference season

With tournaments and events from the Bahamas to Las Vegas, Thanksgiving weekend was stuffed with women’s college basketball and big matchups. Stanford, Maryland, BYU and Oregon State all played multiple games against top 25 teams. Team résumés were enhanced or damaged over just a three-day period.

Yet the schedule gets even better this week as the Big Ten/ACC Challenge and the Big 12/SEC Challenge open. Thursday alone should be the best single day of basketball in the entire nonconference season: a pair of top-15 matchups, the first national TV games for Kara Lawson’s Duke Blue Devils, who face Caitlin Clark and Iowa, and Kim Mulkey’s LSU Tigers, who face Iowa State.

These games can fade from memory once the conference seasons begin, but they become extremely important again once the NCAA tournament selection process is underway. Tournament hopes and seeding can be altered by what happens in the next few days. We get you ready with the players to watch and the games that matter most as four of the five biggest conferences in the country clash over the next five days.

Rank the games that will have the biggest potential to impact Bracketology

No. 2 NC State at No. 6 Indiana
7 p.m. ET Thursday, ESPN2

This is the marquee matchup of the Big Ten/ACC Challenge and a rematch from the Sweet 16. The Wolfpack dominated Maryland and Washington State in the Bahamas, just like they have the rest of their competition since the season-opening loss to South Carolina. They are a solid No. 1 seed right now along with South Carolina and UConn. But that fourth spot on the top line is wide open.

Losing to Stanford and struggling to beat Miami were setbacks to Indiana’s résumé, but this is an opportunity for the Hoosiers to get back into the mix. During their matchup in March, Indiana was able to control 6-foot-5 Elissa Cunane, NC State’s All-American center. But the…