Will UConn win its first title since 2016?
South Carolina will attempt to become college basketball’s first repeat national champion since 2016 when the NCAA women’s Final Four begins Friday in Tampa, Fla.
Top-seeded South Carolina will face fellow SEC opponent and top seed Texas during the night’s first semifinal. UCLA, the tournament’s top overall seed, and No. 2 Connecticut will follow in another. The championship will be played Sunday.
NBC News breaks down the storylines to know and players to watch ahead of the Final Four.
We have three No. 1 seeds and a No. 2 seed in the Final Four. Is that a good or bad thing for the game?
Greif: This is a question that has been asked of the women’s game more than the men because of the concentrated dominance of a small handful of programs since the 1980s. To me, the long-standing, even predictable, success of programs including Tennessee, Connecticut and South Carolina makes a breakthrough tournament run from an outsider program such as a Notre Dame, Mississippi State, Arizona or Iowa even more memorable.
Dynasties aren’t a bad thing; they create strong storylines, especially when they are toppled. This year, that fresh contender is UCLA, which despite being a No. 1 seed isn’t a traditional blue-blood — it’s making its first Final Four.
Nadkarni: As a sicko who doesn’t make a bracket specifically to root for mass chaos, I am legitimately torn on this question. On one hand, the beauty of the knockout tournament is seeing an underdog catch fire and try to ride that wave all the way to the Final Four. On the other, it’s hard to be upset when most of the best talent in the sport is left to battle it out for a championship. So I will say that I err on the side of being pro-top seed. At the end of the day, when the stakes are at their highest, I want to see the sport’s best battling each other in high-pressure situations.
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