Stanford, UConn, South Carolina, NC State take first seeds in NCAA women’s tournament

Stanford, UConn, South Carolina and the state of North Carolina were awarded the first seeds for the NCAA women’s tournament, with the Cardinal winning first place overall.

The female key revealed on Monday night came in the wake of UConn’s announcement that coach Geno Auriemma tested positive for COVID-19 on Sunday. He is not showing any symptoms, according to the school’s release on Monday, and is isolating himself at home.

The Huskies are scheduled to leave for San Antonio on Tuesday morning and will play at High Point on Sunday when the opening round games begin. If they win, they play their second round on March 23, with Auriemma eligible to return to the team on March 24.

The key was revealed on ESPN, and ESPN networks – including ABC – will cover all games in the tournament in the San Antonio area.

Some games in the first round will be in Austin and San Marcos, Texas, but from Sweet 16 onwards, all games will be in Alamodome. The Women’s Final Four will take place April 2-4.

The four regions are named after San Antonio landmarks, with Stanford as the main seed in the Alamo Regional, UConn in the River Walk Regional, South Carolina in the Regional Hemisfair and NC State in the Regional Market. It is Wolfpack’s first No. 1 seed, which reached the 1998 Women’s Four Final as No. 4 seed.

NC State is the only one of the first seeds that did not win the national championship.

UConn has 11 NCAA titles, Stanford two and South Carolina one. The Huskies were on the 12th Final Fours and won the championship for the last time in 2016.

Seeds # 2 are Louisville (Alamo), Baylor (River Walk), Maryland (Hemisfair) and Texas A&M (Market). All, except Louisville, were once national champions. The ACC led all conferences with eight teams in the field, including Wake Forest, which is making its first appearance since 1988. The SEC and Big Ten each have seven teams, the Pac-12 six and the Big 12 five.