UCLA, USC women’s teams take top seeds in March Madness bracket

Fans may believe there is no clear best women’s basketball team heading into this year’s March Madness tournament. Selectors, however, must choose one.

The National Collegiate Athletic Association’s selection committee chose the University of California, Los Angeles Bruins as the first-overall team Sunday, beating out their closest rivals for the title in the University of South Carolina’s Gamecocks.

The Gamecocks, along with the University of Southern California Trojans and the University of Texas at Austin Longhorns, filled out the three other top placements in the four-quadrant tournament bracket.

Brackets for the NCAA Division I Men’s and Women’s tournaments are determined by a selection committee of representatives from various conferences within the league. The selectors attempt to rank 68 teams, many of which rarely play one another. Because of this, the brackets are unpredictable. Their reveal is closely watched each year.

The Bruins are emerging from a banner year, in which they attained a 30-2 record and their first conference title since 2006. They prevailed over USC in the March 9 championship game to take first place in the Big Ten tournament.

South Carolina's claim on the top billing was equally strong, according to some analysts. Though their 30-3 record was slightly worse than that of UCLA, they faced stronger opponents, and emerged with the most wins of any team against top-rated schools.

The Nov. 24 matchup between the Bruins and Gamecocks was decisive for the overall ranking, NCAA Selection Committee Chair Derita Dawkins told ESPN. In that game, UCLA prevailed with a score of 77-62. Dawkins also cited South Carolina’s 87-58 loss to the University of Connecticut, a blowout unmatched by any on UCLA’s résumé.

In the men’s tournament, UCLA received a seventh-seed placement, while USC did not qualify for the tournament. The Bruins have made it to March Madness in each year since 2021, when they reached the Final Four.