With the calendar about to turn to the new year, the true equalizer awaits in women's college basketball: conference play. There's a vast range in how difficult women's basketball programs scheduled their nonconference slates.

Bottom line: Iowa earns a top-four Big Ten finish at 14-4, reaches the Big Ten tournament semifinals, lands a 4-seed for the NCAA tournament, holds serve at Carver to reach the Sweet 16 and narrowly misses a major regional-semifinal upset in Birmingham (or maybe Spokane).

College basketball seasons now involve conference games in early December. That wasn't generally the case 20 years ago, when conferences were smaller. USC women's basketball beat Oregon in a conference game in early December.