Women’s March Madness winners, losers: UConn, South Carolina enter with different vibes

Mitchell Northam, USA TODAYMon, March 16, 2026 at 2:11 AM UTC

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The bracket for the 2026 Women’s NCAA Tournament is officially set.

At the top, the No. 1 seeds are UConn, UCLA, Texas and South Carolina. At the bottom, the last four teams in the field are Richmond, Nebraska, Virginia and Arizona State.

The Big Ten led all conferences with 12 selections in the field of 68, while the SEC got 10 bids, the ACC received nine and the Big 12 had eight.

With a full field of 68, it’s time to break down winners and losers from Selection Sunday:

Selection Sunday winnersUConn

Despite discussion in recent weeks that the UCLA Bruins were perhaps more deserving of the No. 1 overall seed, the UConn Huskies were indeed placed atop the bracket as the top seed. Geno Auriemma’s team will begin its March Madness journey at home in Storrs, Connecticut, against No. 16 UTSA, and then likely face the winner of No. 8 Iowa State and No. 9 Syracuse.

While UCLA has a higher WAB (wins above bubble) ranking than UConn and 10 more Quad 1 wins, the Huskies are undefeated at 34-0 with victories over eight teams in the NCAA Tournament field. The Huskies are also No. 1 in NET, Torvik and Her Hoop Stats Rating, and have the strongest non-conference strength of schedule based on the average NET of their opponents.

Richmond and the Atlantic-10

The Richmond Spiders are in the NCAA Tournament field as an at-large selection for the second straight season, making it as one of the last four teams in. Richmond will open March Madness by taking on Nebraska in a First Four game between No. 11 seeds in Durham, North Carolina at Duke's Cameron Indoor Stadium. The winner will face No. 6 Baylor.

Coached by Aaron Rousell and powered on the court by USA TODAY Sports’ honorable mention All-American selection Maggie Doogan, Richmond went 26-7 this season, with four of those losses coming against fellow NCAA Tournament teams: Texas, TCU, Fairfield and Rhode Island. The Spiders entered Sunday ranking 37th in NET, 50th in WAB and with three Quad 2 wins.

The Atlantic-10 got two teams into the NCAA Tournament field for the second consecutive season and was the only mid-major league to receive multiple bids. The Big East only got two bids as well, with Villanova joining mighty UConn in the field.

Clemson

The Tigers are in the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2019 and just the second time since 2002 under second-year head coach Shawn Poppie. Clemson has long been viewed as a bubble team, but somewhat surprisingly received a No. 8 seed into the field and will face No. 9 Southern Cal in Columbia, South Carolina. That’ll be an easy drive for fans of the Tigers, who averaged more than 1,500 fans this season at home.

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Helping Clemson’s case to get a higher seed was how well the Tigers finished their season, winning eight of their last nine games – a stretch that included an upset win over Duke, a road victory at Cal and an ACC tournament win over Virginia.

Selection Sunday losersSouth Carolina

As many predicted, the Gamecocks did fall to the fourth No. 1 seed after losing to Texas by double digits in the SEC tournament title game. South Carolina’s path to the national championship now includes a trip out west to Sacramento, California, for the regional round and is likely to feature a Final Four matchup with UConn should the Huskies and Gamecocks both advance to Phoenix.

Dawn Staley’s team opens its March Madness campaign at home against the winner of a First Four matchup between 16-seeds Southern and Samford. The Gamecocks will then likely face the winner of No. 8 Clemson and No. 9 Southern Cal, both of which South Carolina beat in the regular season.

Meanwhile, South Carolina’s SEC rival Texas will get the luxury of playing its Sweet 16 and Elite Eight games in its home state in Fort Worth, should the Longhorns make it out of the first weekend as the No. 3 overall seed.

The Cougars will miss the NCAA Tournament for the fourth consecutive season after being one of the first four teams out of the field. BYU went 22-11 overall and 9-9 in Big 12 play in Lee Cummard’s first year as head coach, but ranked just 56th in NET and finished the season 0-5 in Quad 1 games. Unlike Arizona State, the Cougars were unable to notch a signature victory in the Big 12 Tournament.

Hurting the Cougars’ resume were a Quad 3 and a Quad 4 loss. BYU lost at Arizona in January, then fell at home to Cincinnati in February.

Rice

The Owls didn’t have good enough metrics to pop the NCAA Tournament bubble. With a NET of 65, a WAB of 64 and zero Quad 1 wins, they weren’t going to get an at-large bid.

But had Rice won the American Conference Tournament, it could have been seeded as high as an 11 or 12 seed and would have been viewed alongside Princeton, Richmond, Fairfield, James Madison and Rhode Island and one of the toughest mid-major teams in the field. Unfortunately, Lindsay Edmonds’ squad was upset by UTSA in the American title game. The Roadrunners are now the third program that Karen Aston has coached to an NCAA Tournament bid.

Rice, which ranks first nationally in free throw percentage (81.6%) and defensive 3-point rate (19%), will be relegated to the second-tier WBIT. After breaking off a 22-game win streak earlier this season, the Owls could be a trendy pick to win the whole thing.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Women’s NCAA Tournament winners, losers include UConn, South Carolina

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