UCLA is the highest general seed within the girls’s NCAA Match. The Bruins have been joined by South Carolina, Southern California and Texas because the No. 1 seeds that the NCAA revealed Sunday night time.
It’s the primary time in class historical past that the Bruins are the highest crew within the event. They’d two losses on the season, each of which got here to the Trojans.
Daybreak Staley felt her crew ought to get the No. 1 general seed, however in contrast to final 12 months when the Gamecocks completed off an undefeated season with a nationwide title, this crew has three losses heading into March Insanity, together with one to the Bruins.
“Two key factors between UCLA and South Carolina. One was the head-to-head matchup,” NCAA choice committee chair Derita Dawkins mentioned. “The other was one of our criteria is competitive in losses and South Carolina suffered a 29-point loss to UConn. Those were the two key differences in those resumes.”
Staley’s crew is trying to be the primary crew to repeat as champion since UConn gained 4 straight from 2013-16. The Huskies, who’re a two-seed, want to finish that drought with star Paige Bueckers. They’ll should exit west in the event that they attain the Candy 16 and a possible rematch with JuJu Watkins and the Trojans might be ready within the Elite Eight.
The trail for all gained’t be straightforward: This 12 months there’s extra parity within the sport. This NCAA Match will likely be solely the second previously 19 years to haven’t any groups getting into March Insanity with zero or one loss. The opposite time was in 2022.
The Trojans and Bruins, newcomers within the Large Ten this season, will attempt to win the primary nationwide championship for the convention since 1999, when Purdue gained the lone one. A file 12 groups from the Large Ten are within the discipline. The SEC has 10 and the ACC eight. The Large 12 has seven.
The Ivy League acquired three bids to the event for the primary time in convention historical past. Final season, Columbia earned the second at-large bid in league historical past. The Lions are again once more in addition to Princeton. Each are 11 seeds and will likely be competing in play-in video games. Harvard, which gained the convention event, is a ten seed.
Duke, TCU and N.C. State joined the Huskies on the 2-seed line. Notre Dame boasts wins over Texas, USC and UConn however slumped the previous couple of weeks of the common season and fell to a three-seed.
William & Mary is one in all six groups set to make its first look within the girls’s NCAA Match. The others are Arkansas State, Fairleigh Dickinson, George Mason, Grand Canyon and UC San Diego. 4 groups are headed to the lads’s event for the primary time: Excessive Level, Omaha, SIU Edwardsville and UC San Diego.
The Tribe (15-18) are the primary sub-.500 crew since Incarnate Phrase in 2022 to make the event.
Virginia Tech, James Madison, Saint Joseph’s and Colorado have been the primary 4 groups not noted of the sphere.
Payout time
For the primary time in NCAA historical past, there will likely be a monetary incentive for ladies’s groups. They’ll lastly paid for taking part in video games within the NCAA Match similar to the lads have for years.
So-called efficiency models, which signify income, will likely be given to girls’s groups for every win they get. A crew that reaches the Remaining 4 might deliver its convention roughly $1.26 million over the following three years in monetary efficiency rewards.
This comes a 12 months after the ladies’s championship recreation that noticed South Carolina beat Caitlin Clark and Iowa do higher TV scores then the lads’s title recreation.
Match websites
The highest 16 seeds within the 68-team discipline will host first- and second-round video games, with the regional rounds being performed at two impartial websites for the third straight 12 months. Spokane, Washington, will host half of the Candy 16 and Birmingham, Alabama, will host the opposite eight groups.
The Remaining 4 will likely be performed in Tampa, Florida, on April 4, and the championship recreation is 2 days later.
Match tidbits
One crew that didn’t make the sphere was Stanford, which ended the Cardinal’s 36-year streak of taking part in within the NCAA Match. It’s the primary time since 1987 that Stanford gained’t play within the NCAAs. Whereas that streak is over, Tennessee continued its NCAA Match run of showing yearly within the discipline because the first NCAA Match in 1982. The Woman Vols are a five-seed.
