Women’s college basketball bracket set for March Madness: who’s in
UConn, UCLA, South Carolina, and Texas snagged No. 1 seeds.
The 68 NCAA Division I women’s college basketball teams selected for the 2026 National Championship tournament have been announced.
As with every Selection Sunday, there were a few guaranteed seedings, a few interesting seedings, and a few that left fans with their jaws on the floor.
After losing to Texas in the SEC Championship, South Carolina missed out on the No. 3 seed and will play in Region 4.
South Carolina is in the same region as Oklahoma, the only SEC team to beat them in the regular season. To win another national title, the Gamecocks will likely have to beat the Sooners.
Texas will be playing in Region 3, and should they reach the second weekend of games, they will be playing near their home crowd in Fort Worth. Texas was sitting just behind South Carolina for the majority of the season, but the SEC tournament gave the Longhorns the edge over their SEC competitor.
The Longhorns handed UCLA its only loss early in the season, but the Bruins still earned the No. 2 overall seed in Region 2.
To the surprise of absolutely no one who has kept up with NCAA women’s basketball this season, UConn took the top overall seed in the tournament following a dominant, undefeated regular season performance.
Unlike UCLA and Texas, the Huskies won’t play near their fans. This season shows UConn can win without home support.
Vanderbilt was one of the big surprises this Selection Sunday, sitting just outside the top four, even though they had an embarrassingly early leave from the SEC tournament following a 27-4 season.
The Commodores were the second to last undefeated team, and had a dominant start to the season before dropping some games in the final weeks of the regular season.
The selection committee was generous to LSU, giving them the sixth overall seed in the tournament, especially following their rough start to the season and their semifinal loss to South Carolina in the SEC tournament.
Though the Tigers have proved themselves as one of the most physical teams in the NCAA, they have yet to prove themselves against the top teams this season.
Minnesota, a surprise this season, earned the No. 4 seed and will host the first weekend in Minneapolis. The Gophers stayed near the top of the Big Ten all year, just behind UCLA.
They’ll face a scrappy Green Bay team that’s also only a few hours from campus.
Though fans and teams anxiously look forward to yesterday’s Selection Sunday as the kickoff for March Madness, players won’t actually take the court until Wednesday for the First Four, and the first round of the tournament won’t begin until Thursday.
To view the women’s March Madness bracket, visit the NCAA.com.
Thank you for reading Female Athlete News. Clara Romae Slowinski is a student-intern at Penn State University.