The madness of March has arrived, but the national pastime known as March Madness isn’t solely about the men’s NCAA Tournament.
The women take to the court this week as well, starting in earnest on Friday and wrapping up with the national championship game on April 5. Here are the top things to know.
Déjà Vu All Over Again
If it seems as if 2026 women’s March Madness will pick up where the 2025 women’s NCAA Tournament left off, you wouldn’t be far off. All of the No. 1 seeds in this year’s tourney were Final Four participants in last year’s edition. This is just the third time in history this has occurred, with the top seeds being UConn, South Carolina, Texas, and UCLA.Last year’s Final Four saw UConn defeat UCLA and South Carolina knock off Texas, before the Huskies then hoisted the national championship. If chalk prevails in this year’s tourney, then UConn versus South Carolina would occur in the Final Four, with UCLA matching up with Texas.
Huskies Hoping for More Perfection
Stop me if you’ve heard this before: The UConn Huskies are undefeated and riding a lengthy winning streak. The 34-0 Huskies are college basketball’s only unbeaten team—on the women’s or men’s side. This is the 10th time that UConn has entered the women’s NCAA Tournament undefeated, and they won the title six of the previous nine times. With stars such as Sarah Strong and Azzi Fudd, the Huskies are on a 50-game win streak, which is the fifth-longest streak in Division I women’s college basketball history.Fans Hoping for Some Surprises
March Madness 2025 saw something that was the first of its kind—no upsets. The NCAA defines an upset as a difference of at least five seeds, thus an 11-seed beating a 6-seed, a 7-seed beating a 1-seed, etc. There were zero upsets in last year’s women’s tourney. The only lower-seeded teams to win first round games were a pair of 10-seeds beating 7-seeds, and a pair of 9-seeds defeating 8-seeds, but it was all chalk for the other 28 first-round contests.Cinderellas, bracket busters, and upsets are still areas where the women’s tourney is lagging in comparison to the men’s, and those things are what help make the latter so compelling. So here’s hoping that it’s not all chalk this year for women’s March Madness, and a double-digit seed or two makes a lengthy tournament run.
A Lone Debutante to the Ball
Of the 68 teams that qualified for 2026 women’s March Madness, 67 of them have competed in the NCAA Tournament before. The only program making its tourney debut is No. 14 Charleston, who gets the luxury of matching up with ACC regular season and tournament champion, No. 3 Duke, in the first round. The Cougars joined Division I in 1991 and with a 27-5 record, they already have a program mark for most D1 wins in a season.They would love to get win No. 28, while several other programs would also cherish their first ever NCAA Tournament victories. Charleston is one of 14 teams in this year’s field that are seeking their first wins in March Madness, and all 14 are double-digit seeds.
Final Four Heads out West
Phoenix will host the 2026 women’s Final Four as the event eschews its usual Midwest/South/Northeast host sites. This is the farthest West the Final Four has been since being held in San Jose, Calif., in 1999. This will be the first time Arizona hosts a women’s Final Four, while the Phoenix metro has hosted two men’s Final Fours previously.UConn supporters are hoping they can make a trip to Phoenix to see their women’s team compete, and many of them are well-acquainted with the city. That’s because the last time Phoenix hosted the men’s Final Four was just two years ago—in which the UConn Huskies men’s team won its second championship in a row.
History Says Only 12 Teams Can Win
If filling out women’s NCAA Tournament brackets and undecided whom to pick as the winner, you could handicap the field by scratching out every team seeded No. 4 through No. 16. History hasn’t been kind to those seeded teams, as all 43 NCAA women’s Tournaments have been won by a 1, 2, or 3 seed.
No. 1 seeds have won 32 times (74.4 percent), with 2-seeds prevailing eight times (18.6 percent), and No. 3 seeds winning three times (7.0 percent). Furthermore, no team seeded sixth or worse has ever made the National Championship Game, and there has never been a Final Four without a No. 1 seed.
