The women’s 2023 NCAA Tournament field was officially unveiled on Sunday night. Here’s what you need to know:
Click here to download The Athletic’s 2023 women’s NCAA Tournament bracket.
The Athletic’s instant analysis:
What was the biggest surprise?
One of the biggest questions heading into Sunday was who the four No. 1 seeds would be. South Carolina and Indiana were seemingly locks to claim two of those spots, but how the remaining two top seeds, especially Seattle 4, were going to play out remained in question. Virginia Tech seemed poised to claim one of them, having won 11 consecutive games heading into Selection Sunday (including the ACC Tournament title).
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Stanford would be named the fourth No. 1 seed, having amassed more wins against the top 50 of the NET than any team in the country except South Carolina. They edged out Iowa, which claimed the Big Ten Tournament title and is playing as well as any team in the country, and UConn, which won the Big East Tournament title. The Hawkeyes, led by The Athletic’s Player of the Year, Caitlin Clark, had an especially deserving case, but the committee chose otherwise. — Pickman
Who got snubbed?
Seemingly everything was lining up for this year’s NCAA Tournament to feature two teams from the Ivy League. Columbia took home the conference’s regular season crown, doing so for the first time in the program’s 37-year history, yet when it dropped its Ivy League Tournament semifinal matchup to Harvard, its spot in the field of 68 became a lot more tenuous.
Princeton went on to claim the conference’s automatic bid while the Lions, who notched 13 road wins and seven wins against NET top 100 teams, were left out of the draw. And despite their resume, they also likely suffered from schools like Portland and East Carolina stealing automatic qualifier bids. St. John’s might have notched a more impressive victory than any of Columbia’s by defeating UConn, but of the non-automatic qualifiers, the committee might have taken a lesser New York City-based school as a result. — Pickman
Full NCAA Tournament schedule
- Bracket reveal: Sunday, March 12
- First Four: Wednesday, March 15, and Thursday, March 16
- First round: Friday, March 17, and Saturday, March 18
- Second round: Sunday, March 19, and Monday, March 20
- Sweet 16: Friday, March 24, and Saturday, March 25
- Elite 8: Sunday, March 26, and Monday, March 27
- Final Four: Friday, March 31 in Dallas at 7 and 9:30 p.m. ET
- National championship game: Sunday, April 2 in Dallas at 3 p.m. ET
Required reading
(Photo: Jeff Blake / USA Today)
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