Big Ten fields most D‑I women’s March Madness teams so far
Clinched teams are ready to watch who else is in?
The nation’s best women’s basketball players are gearing up for the tournament they’ve trained for all their lives: March Madness.
The 64 teams that made the tournament will be announced at 8 p.m. EST on Selection Sunday, March 15.
Thirty-one teams have already clinched the tournament through automatic bids or winning their conference tournament. The Big Ten have the most teams set to dance already.
Big Ten: Minnesota, Oregon, Washington, Iowa, UCLA, Michigan State, Ohio State, Michigan, and Maryland
SEC: Vanderbilt, LSU, Oklahoma, Texas, Kentucky, Ole Miss, South Carolina, and Alabama
ACC: North Carolina, Notre Dame, Louisville, and Duke
Big 12: TCU and West Virginia
Big East: UConn
Other teams that clinched include: Samford, South Dakota State, James Madison, Rhode Island, Western Illinois, and High Point.
The top five conferences are expected to be the only conferences represented in the rest of the open tournament seeds, but the Big Ten and SEC have been the strongest conferences all season.
Within the open seeds remaining, some of the teams likely expected to make the tournament are USC out of the BIG Ten and Texas Tech and Iowa State out of the Big 12.
Texas Tech began the season on a 19-game winning streak, their best start since the 1992-93 season, and were expected to be highly seeded in the tournament at the beginning of the season. The Lady Raiders are led by senior Bailey Maupin who was named as a finalist for the 2026 Lilly Women’s College All-Star Game, and is averaging over 15 points per game.
USC had a decent season, but fear about tournament strength struck the team during their loss to the Washington Huskies in the first round of the Big Ten tournament. The Trojan’s star freshman Jazzy Davidson went down with a shoulder injury, but the team has announced she will be available for March Madness.
Bubble teams expected to be the last four include Virginia, Arizona State, Colorado, and Nebraska with some hope possible for Florida or BYU, but many predictions have them among the first four out.
Coaches, players, and fans of Mississippi State and North Dakota State will also be on the edge of their seats come Selection Sunday with some hope for a 16 seed.
Thank you for reading Female Athlete News. Clara Romae Slowinski is a student-intern at Penn State University.