NCAA women’s tournament - Ranking the top contenders
Yahoo Sports women's basketball writer Cassandra Negley breaks down the favorites to cut down the nets in Cleveland.
Video Transcript
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CASSANDRA NEGLEY: This is Cassandra Negley for Yahoo Sports. Let's rank the top contenders for the NCAA Women's Basketball title.
Let's first look at South Carolina, which secured the number-one overall seed. They obviously have or are supposed to have the easiest road to the Final Four, and they definitely do.
They're in a region with Notre Dame. Notre Dame has an injury concern. Kylie Watson announced on Sunday night that she injured her ACL. She will not be able to play. They're also in a region with Oregon State and Indiana, so you should definitely be writing South Carolina into the Final Four.
As for a contender that could join them, let's talk about USC, which secured a number-one seed, because they are one of the hottest teams heading into the tournament. They could face Ohio State for a bid into the Final Four. That would be a rematch of the first game of the season. And those two teams will be in the Big Ten together next year.
As for the third team, let's talk about Texas, because defense travels, and this is what Texas does incredibly well. We've also seen their offense come together under Madison Booker. They played incredibly well in that Big 12 Championship game to win the title and earn this number-one seed.
We are going to put Iowa as a top contender for the Final Four and the title, but with a huge caveat. Because this bracket is not friendly to the Hawkeyes. They are in a bracket with UCLA, LSU, and Kansas State as the top four seeds in one of the Albany regionals.
This is going to be tough for Iowa to overcome. They obviously have an incredibly good offense, but their defense is not always the best.
One of the things the committee said about this bracket and this region specifically was that there were so many Pac 12 teams on the top four lines that they had to make sure that they all weren't in the same region. And that's how some of these ended up in Iowa's bracket.
Be sure to get in on the action with Yahoo's Bracket Madness game for both the Women's and the Men's tournaments. You could win $25,000 in our best bracket contest. It is free to play, so head over to Yahoo.Com/tourney to sign up.
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