NCAA women’s tourney begins road to Phoenix

PHOENIX – From teams on the top rungs of the women’s college basketball ladder such as UConn and South Carolina, to the upstart programs of Fairfield and Wisconsin-Green Bay, March Madness is here. This year’s NCAA Division I Women’s Basketball Tournament teams are hoping to keep dancing.

All the way to Phoenix.

The Valley will host the Women’s Final Four for the first time, with semifinal games on April 3 and the championship on April 5, all at Mortgage Matchup Center. The 68-team field, which includes the host school Arizona State, is filled with high-caliber matchups and battle-tested teams.

“Each of the teams in those lines had unbelievable seasons,” said Amanda Braun, chair of the NCAA Division I Women’s Basketball Committee. “That was acknowledged in every conversation that we had as we went down and really split hairs … looked at the criteria and applied it the best that we could, and this committee worked hard to get that right this year.”

There were tough decisions to make across the board on Selection Sunday, from the order of the top seeded teams to the last teams in and those that were left out. 

Now that the brackets are set, all eyes are focused on the road to Phoenix. 

Top Seeds

UConn, UCLA, Texas and South Carolina headline the tournament as the No. 1 seeds in each region. The Huskies and Bruins have been especially dominant, holding down the No. 1 and No. 2 spots in the AP Top 25 Women’s Basketball Poll for the majority of the season.

In fact, UConn has held the top spot since the preseason and takes a 34-0 record into the tournament. On the opposite coast, UCLA has also been a force, compiling a 31-1 record and winning the Big Ten Tournament championship game by 51 points against No. 9 ranked Iowa. 

The committee had a tough decision to make on Selection Sunday between UCLA or UConn for the No. 1 overall seed in the tournament. Ultimately, the panel selected the defending champion Huskies.

“It’s hard to put into words exactly how folks view that (the difference between UConn and UCLA),” Braun said. “I do think that given the amount of time that we talked, the style of play, the types of wins that they had and the way they played from the beginning of the season to the end of the season, I would tell you that that’s probably what put it over the edge.”

The two other teams on the top rung of women’s college basketball are Texas and South Carolina, both members of the SEC. The Longhorns and the Gamecocks each finished 31-3 and split their regular season series 1-1. Texas won the rubber match, upending the Gamecocks 78-61 in the championship game of the SEC Tournament.

Texas not only has the SEC title on its resume, the Longhorns handed UCLA its lone loss, taking down the Bruins 76-65 in late November.  

Each of the top seeds is built for long runs in March – and possibly into April – with dominant wins and defining moments along the way. 

First Four/First Four Out

Wednesday and Thursday’s games open March Madness with the most competitive play-in games in recent memory. The First Four is a play-in round in which teams fight just to get into the 64-team bracket’s first round.

The two 16-seed matchups include Missouri State against Stephen F. Austin and Southern versus Samford. The winners will find Texas and South Carolina waiting in the Round of 64.

The battle between 11 seeds Nebraska and Richmond is one of the more interesting matchups in the tournament. The Spiders and the Cornhuskers square-off in a battle between the Atlantic 10 and the Big Ten with the winner advancing to face sixth-seeded Baylor at Duke’s Cameron Indoor Arena.

The best of First Four matchups might be the one between 10 seeds Virginia and Arizona State, with the winner moving on to face No. 7-seed Georgia. 

Virginia (19-11) has had its share of highs and lows, with victories against No. 3 seed Louisville and No. 6 seed Notre Dame, but falling to Maryland-Baltimore County and Cal, neither of which made the NCAA Tournament. 

Similarly, ASU (24-10) has had a roller-coaster season, starting the year with a program-best 15-0 record before finishing the season with nine wins in its final 19 games. 

BYU, Utah, North Dakota State and Texas A&M were the teams that fell just short of making the tournament field. 

BYU was the first team out, according to Braun. The last two teams to get in were Nebraska and Richmond, so the committee compared those teams to the Cougars. After applying the same criteria across the board and cross-referencing among the three teams, it became clear to the committee that BYU would be left out.

All four are headed to the Women’s Basketball Invitation Tournament (WBIT), snagging that tournament’s top four seeds. 

Conference Breakdown 

This NCAA’s biggest conferences dominated the selections, with 39 teams representing the Big 12, Big Ten, ACC and SEC. 

The ACC’s nine teams is a conference record, surpassing the eight teams the league sent in 2014 when the league had three teams in the Sweet 16 and two in the Final Four. 

The SEC, Big 12 and the Big Ten each tied conference records for the number of teams they’re sending. The Big 12 has eight teams in the field, the SEC 10 and the Big Ten has 12, which is the most by any conference this year. 

With Texas and South Carolina, the SEC is the only league with two No. 1 seeds. 

Big 12 teams include Arizona State, Baylor, Iowa State,Texas Tech, Oklahoma State, Colorado, TCU and West Virginia. TCU and West Virginia will host first and second round games.

The regular season Big 12 champion TCU Horned Frogs are hosting for the second consecutive season and have an NCAA-leading 42-game home winning streak at Schollmaier Arena. The West Virginia Mountaineers – the reigning Big 12 Tournament Champions – will host for the first time since 1992.  

Expectations 

While there is no guarantee that the top-seeded teams will make it to Phoenix, history suggests that the highest seeded teams will go the deepest in the tournament. 

Last season the Final Four featured one No. 2-seed and three of the four No. 1 seeds. All four top-seeded teams advanced to the Elite Eight.

It’s a trend in the women’s bracket of high seeds dominating. The last time only one of the top seeds made it to the Final Four was the 2015-16 season. 
There has never been a tournament since the field was expanded to 64 teams in 1994 in which none of the No. 1 seeds made it to the Final Four. 

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