UConn, South Carolina, Stanford and Louisville are in line for the first seeds of the NCAA women’s tournament.
The women’s basketball selection committee revealed the top 16 teams to this point on Monday night. The Huskies, who climbed to number one in the Associated Press women’s basketball poll earlier in the day, would be the first seeds.
The UConn region would include Arizona, Baylor and Tennessee as the other three main seeds. The South Carolina group has Maryland, UCLA and West Virginia. Stanford has NC State, Georgia and Indiana. Louisville would be joined by Texas A&M, Oregon and Kentucky.
The top 16 full February 16 are below:
1. UConn (seed # 1 – Region 1)
2. South Carolina (seed # 1 – Region 2)
3. Stanford (seed # 1 – Region 3)
4. Louisville (seed # 1 – Region 4)
5. Texas A&M
6. NC state
7. Maryland
8. Arizona
9. UCLA
10. Baylor
11. Oregon
12. Georgia
13. Tennessee
14. West Virginia
15. Indiana
16. Kentucky
“I would say that for each line, we had a healthy debate,” said NCAA women’s basketball selection committee chairwoman Nina King.
In recent years, winning one of the first 16 seeds would give a team home games in the first two rounds of the NCAA Tournament. This year, however, because of the coronavirus pandemic, the entire NCAA Tournament will be played in the San Antonio area. The last four rounds of the NCAAs will be at Alamodome.
This made classification easier for the committee, as they did not have to worry about geography and putting teams closer to home for regional teams.
“It was great. We finished the group quickly,” said King. “It is much easier and the S curve is our priority. There are some principles to establish the key that we had to follow and we changed some teams. One of the main ones was to avoid confrontations at the conference to a regional final. Kentucky is in a region with Louisville as opposed to a region with South Carolina. ”
This is the sixth consecutive year that the NCAA has provided an insight into the season of where the teams would be placed.
“It’s a snapshot at the right time right now, which is why we do it twice,” said King. “Then we have the final selections. You see what’s on the committee’s radar right now. “
The Southeast Conference had the highest result among the initial list with five teams. Pac-12 had four.
Michigan and South Florida lost only once this season, but were left out of the initial revelation. Both teams had long breaks because of COVID-19. King said they were among the next nine teams under discussion for one of the top 16. The two schools joined Arkansas, DePaul, Georgia Tech, Gonzaga, Missouri State, South Dakota State and Washington State.
The NCAA will have another reveal on March 1, before the key is revealed on March 15.