March Madness: 4 teams to watch as NCAA Women's Final Four contenders to reach Cleveland
The road to Cleveland begins this week.
The 68-team field for the 2024 NCAA Division I Women's Basketball Tournament is set. The tournament starts Wednesday and will end April 5 and 7 when Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse hosts the Final Four.
Who has a shot to make it to the Final Four? Here are four of several possibilities:
Iowa's Caitlin Clark ... You may have heard of her
Iowa's Caitlin Clark has undoubtedly become the face of not just women's college basketball, but all of college basketball. The popularity of the reigning Naismith Women's Player of the Year has resulted in packed arenas — home and away — and high television ratings.
Clark leads the nation in scoring with an average 32.0 points and in assists at 8.6 a game. Her 3,771 career points make her the all-time leading scorer among men and women in NCAA Division I basketball.
Oh, Clark's team is pretty good, too. The Hawkeyes are a No. 1 seed and favored to get back to the Final Four, where they were national runners-up last year.
Tournament seed: No. 1 Albany 2 Region.
Tournament path: Iowa opens against the UT Martin/Holy Cross winner at 3 p.m. Saturday (ABC). The other top seeds in the region are No. 2 UCLA, No. 3 LSU and No. 4 Kansas State.
Ohio State hoping to head up the highway to Cleveland
Wouldn't it be something if head coach Kevin McGuff's Ohio State team is in a Final Four in its home state?
It's possible. After a run to the Elite Eight in 2023, the Buckeyes won the Big Ten regular season championship and enter the tournament 25-5 overall.
The bad news for Naismith Women's Player of the Year semifinalist Jacy Sheldon and the Buckeyes is they're experiencing their longest losing streak of the season — two games. Iowa defeated them in the final game of the regular season. Ohio State also lost to Maryland in the first round of the Big Ten Tournament.
The Buckeyes have not been to a Final Four since 1993 when they lost to Texas Tech in the championship game. They lost to Virginia Tech in last year's Elite Eight.
Tournament seed: No. 2 Portland 3 Region.
Tournament path: Ohio State opens against No. 15 Maine at noon Friday (ESPN). The other top seeds in the region are No. 1 USC, No. 3 UConn and No. 4 Virginia Tech.
South Carolina perfect — again — heading into March Madness
It isn't easy to go undefeated. Just ask the 32-0 South Carolina Gamecocks, who look unbeatable most nights.
The Gamecocks were on track to go unbeaten and win their second straight national championship last year. Their dream was derailed by a loss to Iowa in the Final Four.
You couldn't fault Naismith semifinalist Kamilla Cardoso and the rest of the Gamecocks if they played with a chip on their shoulders this season. South Carolina is undefeated again. Will head coach Dawn Staley's team go wire to wire and regain the crown this time?
Tournament seed: No. 1 Albany 1 Region.
Tournament path: South Carolina opens against the Sacred Heart/Presbyterian winner at 2 p.m. Friday (ESPN). The other top seeds in the region are No. 2 Notre Dame, No. 3 Oregon State and No. 4 Indiana.
Don't forget defending NCAA national champion LSU
Angel Reese and the defending champion LSU Tigers, you remember them, right?
The Tigers (28-5) are arguably the best SEC team not named South Carolina. They won 10 straight games before losing to the Gamecocks 79-72 in the conference championship game.
Reese, another Naismith semifinalist, has averaged a double-double in each of her last three seasons. She played two seasons at Maryland before she transferred to LSU in 2022.
Tournament seed: No. 3 Albany 2 Region.
Tournament path: LSU opens against No. 14 Rice at 4 p.m. Friday (ESPN). The other top seeds in the region are No. 1 Iowa, No. 2 UCLA and No. 4 Kansas State.
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This article originally appeared on The Repository: 4 contenders to survive March Madness and reach Cleveland Final Four