March Madness: NCAA unveils first females’s top 16 one month before Possibility Sunday

Digital Author February 16, 2024

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GREENVILLE, NORTH CAROLINA - DECEMBER 30: Chloe Kitts #21, Tessa Johnson #5, Raven Johnson #25, MiLaysia Fulwiley #12 and Kamilla Cardoso #10 of the South Carolina Gamecocks huddle during their game against the East Carolina Lady Pirates in Williams Arena at Minges Coliseum on December 30, 2023 in Greenville, North Carolina. SC won 73-36. (Photo by Lance King/Getty Images) — The South Carolina Gamecocks, who have not taken a loss this season, are the NCAA’s top team. (Describe by Lance King/Getty Photos)

With Possibility Sunday 31 days away and Iowa necessary particular person Caitlin Clark‘s myth-breaking moment at hand, the NCAA females’s basketball selection committee offered its first in-season top-16 present on Thursday.

The undefeated South Carolina Gamecocks were inevitably awarded the No. 1 seed. They boast the suitable flawless myth in females’s and men’s Division I basketball. Possibility committee chairperson Lisa Peterson heralded the dominant squad because the “most real looking glaring replacement,” mighty the next picks to separate themselves sooner than the next present.

The reigning champions, LSU, are currently the No. 14 seed. In the identical rankings remaining year, they were placed at No. 5. They opened the 2023-24 campaign with a 92-78 loss to Colorado, which the committee has at No. 4 overall.

“I feel no doubt one of the things that we checked out became as soon as the usual of wins and losses,” Peterson acknowledged of the replacement route of. “However moreover how many of us challenged themselves [with their non-conference schedules].”

The initial selection in overall works as a free indication of how the NCAA tournament bracket would maybe indubitably pan out. All the map during the teams which were included within the committee’s initial present within the past 10 years, most real looking Rutgers (2017-18) has passed over out on the tournament entirely. Last year, Kansas Verbalize became as soon as the suitable assorted team to land within the bottom half of the bracket.

This month will moreover characteristic the next present, that can come before the Notre Dame vs. Virginia Tech game on Feb. 29 (ESPN2, 6: 30 p.m.). The stout 68-team bracket will most certainly be unveiled at 8 p.m. ET on Sunday, March 17 on ESPN.

Here’s the first top 16:

1. South Carolina

2. Stanford

3. Ohio Verbalize

4. Colorado

5. Iowa

6. NC Verbalize

7. UCLA

8. Texas

9. Southern California

10. Virginia Tech

11. Oregon Verbalize

12. UConn

13. Kansas Verbalize

14. LSU

15. Indiana

16. Louisville

The committee moreover gave each and every team a regional project, putting them either in Albany, Unusual York, or Portland, Oregon. In the remaining bracket, these areas will decide first-round matchups and the effect they’ll decide yell.