Advertisement

Women's NCAA Tournament - Seattle 4 region bracket breakdown

Yahoo Sports Videos

Yahoo Sports women's basketball writer Cassandra Negley breaks down the Seattle 4 region of the 2023 NCAA women's tournament field -- including two powerhouse teams Stanford and Iowa.

Video Transcript

CASSANDRA NEGLEY: This is Cassandra Negley with Yahoo Sports, and we're breaking down the NCAA tournament so that you can fill out your brackets. Let's look at Seattle 4, which has two top teams who could have switched with each other on those top lines. Stanford took the number one seed over Iowa, which will be the number two seed here. This was an incredibly-close call between the top six teams honestly to figure out this bracket. And if there's chalk, we'll see if the committee decided correctly.

Now, the committee said on ESPN tonight that it was Stanford 20 wins against top 100 net teams that edged them over Iowa. Iowa was 18 and 6 in that category. So that's how close these two teams are. Number three Duke and number four Texas are also in this region. Both are great defensive teams. The same as number five Louisville. So if you're watching this one carefully, you might not see a lot of very high-scoring games, but you'll see a lot of competitive games.

Early on, we're looking at number six Colorado versus number 11 Middle Tennessee. Now, Colorado has played some of the best teams in the Pac-12. They were the team that took Stanford to two overtimes a few weeks ago. Middle Tennessee doesn't have that type of resume, but they do have good offensive and defensive numbers. They can get to the free throw line, and they aren't turning it over that much.

Now, that winner will likely draw number three Duke, and that's an early upset to watch in the second around. The Blue Devils are the best defensive team in the nation, but they have struggled offensively lately. Their three most recent games are the fewest point totals of the season and the average 41 points in them. Also in that bracket, let's look at Florida State and likely freshman of the year, Ta'Niya Latson. Watch for her to have a huge game in that first around. The team is top 10 offensively.

You can sign up for the women's and men's Tourney Pick'em now. It is free to play and available on the Yahoo Fantasy Sports site. The best bracket of each of the women's and men's tourney wins $25,000. Sign up now at tourney.yahoo.com, and the women's tournament begins March 17th.