The #2 & #3 seeds are 1080 against the #15 & #14 seeds, respectively (1.000). Geno Auriemma has led UConn to all 11 of its championships, Notably, the first two times this occurred were at the hands of the same school: Lowest seeds to reach each round since the expansion to 64 teams: Unlike in the men's tournament, no #14 seed has beaten a #3 and no #15 seed has beaten a #2 seed, but they have come close. All four #1 seeds have made it to the Final Four 4 times (champion in bold): The championship game has matched two #1 seeds 14 times: Three teams have beaten three #1 seeds during the course of a tournament (the largest number of such teams that can be faced) (all three teams won the national championship as beating a 3rd #1 seed in a single tournament can only happen in the finals): Prior to the expansion of the tournament to 64 teams, all four #1 seeds advanced to the Sweet Sixteen with three exceptions. In 1990, Louisiana Tech entered the tournament 290, but lost in the Final Four to Auburn. Relative to their high standards, UConn struggled during the first two years following Taurasi's graduation in 2004. The 200405 season was marked with sloppy play and ragged offense; UConn lost 8 games and failed to win the Big East regular season crown for the first time since 1993. Of the 19 teams who have entered the tournament unbeaten, 9 went on to win the National Championship.[9]. The following table shows the UConn players recipients of the major individual awards in women's college basketball. Top 9 largest point differentials accumulated over the entire tournament by tournament champion. Which coach has won the most NCAA womens basketball tournament championships? During 201011 season Maya Moore posted career highs in scoring (22.3 ppg), assists (4.1 apg) and steals (2.2 spg), sweeping all possible individual honors: she won her 2nd Naismith College Player of the Year award, her 3rd straight Wade Trophy (only player in history - freshmen are not eligible for this award), her 2nd Associated Press Women's College Basketball Player of the Year award, her 2nd USBWA Women's National Player of the Year award and her 2nd John R. Wooden Award; she was also voted Big East Player of The Year (3rd time) and a fourth straight unanimous First-Team All-American in WBCA, USBWA and AP polls (second player ever after Oklahoma's Courtney Paris). Their play was uneven during the regular season, where UConn went 273 with a loss to Baylor and a pair of losses to Notre Dame (including a three-overtime game in South Bend); in the Big East tournament UConn lost a third straight time to Notre Dame that delivered a last-minute comeback. In 1986, Texas entered the tournament 300, beat USC for the national title, and ended the season 340. Due to venue availability, in some cases, the lower seed hosted, or the game was played at a neutral site. In 2012, Baylor entered the tournament 340, beat Notre Dame for the national title, and ended the season 400. [72] From 201314 to 201920, UConn played in the American Athletic Conference, where they went unbeaten both in regular season and conference tournament games, with a perfect 1390 record and 7 conference tournaments. [2], The Huskies have appeared in the NCAA tournament 34 times, every year since their first appearance in 1989. UConn's current head coach is Luigi "Geno" Auriemma, who joined the team in 1985. She was also named the 2000 Naismith and Parade Magazine National High School Player of the Year. After beating Minnesota in the semifinals, UConn again defeated Tennessee for the national championship. Division I The 201213 season began with high hopes having UConn landed three highly ranked recruits: #1 overall Breanna Stewart from Cicero North Syracuse High School, forward Morgan Tuck and guard Moriah Jefferson. In 1997, UConn entered the tournament 300, but lost in the Midwest Regional Final to Tennessee. UConn has featured a great number of star players, All-Americans, Hall of Famers and recipients of individual trophies. [24] With Shea Ralph and senior Nykesha Sales out for the entire season, freshman Svetlana Abrosimova led a young UConn team to the NCAA Tournament Regional Final where they eventually lost to North Carolina State 6052. UConn finished the regular season undefeated and established a 70-game winning streak, shattering the previous mark of 54 set by Louisiana Tech; the streak ended in the Big East championship game loss to Villanova. In the NCAA tournament UConn reached the Elite Eight but came up short in its hopes to make it back to the Final Four, losing to eventual champion North Carolina. 1 are shown with double underline, and 12 teams seeded between No. Bascom was hit with early foul trouble and Virginia held off a late UConn rally. The win was even more special as the UConn men's basketball team won the men's national championship the previous night, marking the first time one University won both the men's and women's basketball championships in one season, a feat UConn repeated in 2014. The women's tournament championship game had 9.9 million views, becoming the most-watched women's basketball game in history. [13][14], In an interview on NBC's Meet the Press on the day of the 2023 national championship, new NCAA president Charlie Baker implicated that the media rights to the women's basketball tournament may be sold separately in the next rights cycle, stating that "we do have an opportunity to put it out separately, and we're going to work really hard to make sure that those student-athletes, those schools, those programs get what I describe as what they should get. After a brief stint at a small college in Pennsylvania, she applied for the job at UConn, starting in 1975 and leading the team to a 3866 record in five seasons. Conference regular season champion The Scope has never been the Lady Monarchs' regular home court. After graduating from college in California, Wanda Flora went to graduate school at Indiana University, where she was an assistant coach for the women's basketball team and coached the junior varsity team. [17] Coverage later expanded to include ESPN's college sports-oriented network ESPNU, and ESPN360 for streaming. 1 in the polls for the first time in program history. In 1993, Vermont entered the tournament 280, but lost in the first round to Rutgers. At the time of her injury, she was only one point shy of Kerry Bascom's school scoring record. Under his watch, UConn has become the winningest team in women's college basketball, and he has made a strong case as one of the best coaches ever. UConn beat Toledo 8180 at Gampel Pavilion in the opening round game, with Bascom scoring a team NCAA tournament single-game record 39 points, and moved on to the regionals at The Palestra in Auriemma's hometown of Philadelphia. [65] The loss ended the streak at 111 consecutive wins, an all-time record not only for college basketball games, but also for any team sport played at college level. [20] In 2023, the national championship game aired on ABC for the first time. In 2010 Lobo became the first Connecticut player inducted into the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame, among a class of six inductees,[19] followed by teammate Jennifer Rizzotti in the class of 2013.[20]. With Taurasi joining the core of the 2000 Championship team, Auriemma confidently predicted another championship in 2001, but the season turned out to be more difficult than expected. In the NCAA tournament UConn key-players Stewart, Kaleena Mosqueda-Lewis, Stefanie Dolson and senior Kelly Faris raised their level of play, and UConn easily advanced to the Final Four; in the semifinals they handily beat Notre Dame and in the finals they obtained a 9360 win over Louisville, who had earlier upset Baylor, for a record tying eighth national championship. Connecticut recovered focus after the loss and got through the rest of the regular season undefeated, regaining the #1 ranking along the way after Baylor's loss to Texas Tech in February. The Huskies found their rhythm during the NCAA Tournament, in which they were a #2 seed; in the Elite Eight they beat top-seeded Penn State to advance to the Final Four at the New Orleans Arena. UConn has also been one of the leaders in women's basketball attendance; the team plays its home games at both the Harry A. Gampel Pavilion in Storrs and the XL Center in Hartford. The regional seeding resumed in 1994. In 1980 the university hired Jean Balthaser, who had coached at the University of Pittsburgh. [2], The UConn Huskies are the most successful women's basketball program in the nation, having won a record 11 NCAA Division I National Championships and a women's record four in a row, from 2013 through 2016,[3] plus over 50 conference regular season and tournament championships. Taurasi was the third basketball player to receive this final honor, after former UConn star Rebecca Lobo and Tennessee star Chamique Holdsclaw. Leading up to the Final Four in San Antonio, UConn dominated teams from Southern, Temple, Iowa State and Florida State. 283 teams have appeared in the NCAA tournament in at least one year starting with 1982 (the initial year that the post-season tournament was under the auspices of the NCAA). In the NCAA tournament Final Four UConn met Notre Dame for the fourth time of the season, with the underdog Fighting Irish prevailing and ending UConn's bid for a third straight national championship. ET. The results for all years are shown in this table below.[7]. "[27] The 199899 season ended in the Sweet Sixteen round of the NCAA Tournament, where UConn lost 6458 to Iowa State, falling short of reaching the Final Four for the third consecutive time. Moore was named the Tournament Most Outstanding Player, to go along with her second straight Wade Trophy award and Academic All-America of the Year award. [28], Auriemma pulled off another huge recruiting coup when he convinced All-American guard Diana Taurasi to travel across country to attend Connecticut. Rebecca Lobo was part of the 1997 inaugural draft, with the top players allocated to founding teams without any particular order; similarly Nykesha Sales was part of the 1998 WNBA expansion players allocation. In 2017, UConn entered the tournament 320, but lost in the Final Four to. The NCAA tournament has undergone dramatic expansion since its first edition in 1982, and only one unbeaten team has failed to qualify for the tournamentCalifornia Baptist in 2021, which was 240 after winning the Western Athletic Conference Tournament. WebThe UConn Huskies are the most successful women's basketball program in the nation, having won a record 11 NCAA Division I National Championships and a women's 2 South Carolina. [4], The tournament begins with four opening-round games known as the First Four. In 1992, Vermont entered the tournament 290, but lost in the first round to George Washington. Geno Auriemma is now the only coach in college basketball to have won 11 titles, passing UCLA legend John Wooden (who has 10) and reaching former NBA coach Phil Jackson. The only close game the Huskies played all year long was a win at Virginia Tech. The NCAA Division I women's basketball tournament is a single-elimination tournament played each spring in the United States, currently featuring 68 women's college basketball teams from the Division I level of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), to determine the national championship. Postseason invitational champion Below are the teams most likely to win the 2023 NCAA Women's Tournament (as of Friday, March 10), via The AIAW also held a basketball tournament in 1982, but most of the top teams, including defending AIAW champion Louisiana Tech, decided to participate in the NCAA tournament. This season also saw the birth of one of the greatest rivalries in college sports, the UConn-Tennessee rivalry, that began when the two teams met for the first time on Martin Luther King Day at Gampel Pavilion. Their combined record is 12823 .848; they have been to 22 Final Fours and are 11-time National Champions (1995, 2000, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2009, 2010, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016). In her career at UConn, Taurasi led the team to four consecutive Final Fours and three straight national titles. Maya Moore was also a brilliant college student: she graduated with a 3.7 GPA, earning the Elite 88 Award, and was named Cosida Academic All-America First-Team in 2009, 2010 and 2011, Cosida Academic All-America of the Year in 2010 and 2011 (1st player to ever repeat) and All-sports Academic All-America of the Year in 2011. [40], In the 200607 season, the team improved with the additions of Renee Montgomery, Mel Thomas, Ketia Swanier, and the #1 ranked high school player Tina Charles, helping UConn emerge as a contender again. Rallying from a 14-point deficit in the NCAA regional final they beat conference rival Rutgers and advanced to their first Final Four since Taurasi graduated. UConn has won 11 NCAA womens basketball championships. Auriemma's training skills had an immediate impact and the team showed steady signs of progress: after going 1215 in his first season in 198586, Auriemma led UConn to winning seasons in 198687 and 198788. 2 Southern Cal. The first season for the highly ranked class in 199899 was up and down and featured many injuries: Sue Bird tore her ACL and was lost for the season after only 10 games. Auriemma found himself in a national debate following a decision he made during the 199798 season. Despite the two regular season meetings being close battles, UConn used tenacious defense and backdoor cuts to overwhelm Tennessee 7152 for their second national championship. Geno Auriemma jokingly once referred to Pat Summitt and Tennessee as the "evil empire", like Red Sox president and CEO Larry Lucchino said of the Yankees. [citation needed] The top-seeded team in each region plays the #16 team, the #2 team plays the #15, etc. The following table summarizes some of the key attributes of the seeding process:[6]. Lobo graduated in 1995 receiving countless accolades: the Naismith College Player of the Year award, the Wade Trophy, the Associated Press Women's College Basketball Player of the Year award, the USBWA Women's National Player of the Year award, the Honda-Broderick Cup, the Best Female Athlete ESPY Award (first basketball player ever), the Associated Press Athlete of the Year (second basketball player after Sheryl Swoopes), the NCAA Woman of the Year Award, the Academic All-America of the Year and also All-sports Academic All-America of the Year. [57] Breanna Stewart was named the AP Player of the year, only the third time in history a sophomore has won the honor. [3], After losing the stellar trio of Stewart, Jefferson and Tuck, many predicted a sub-par season for UConn standards; the AP Poll ranked the team third in the nation, and coach Auriemma had designed a very tough non-conference calendar to test the strength of his young team. On December 7, 2018, UConn announced that the #50 worn by Rebecca Lobo would be permanently retired, effective with ceremonies to be held during the Huskies' final 201819 home game on March 2, 2019. The sports under consideration were the four major professional sports (NFL, MLB, NBA and NHL) along with the three most prominent college sports: football, men's basketball and women's basketball. Motivated by the previous disappointing season, UConn came back in 19992000 with the clear goal of reaching the championship level again. In the NCAA tournament, UConn lost to Stanford in the Sweet Sixteen. UConn was a #1 seed in the NCAA tournament, but eventually lost to LSU in the regional final to end the season with a 324 record. At the same time, the Huskies announced that the #34 worn by Ray Allen, a 2018 Naismith Hall inductee, would be retired by UConn men's basketball, with ceremonies held during the season's final men's home game on March 3, 2019. The four lowest-seeded automatic bids, and the four lowest-seeded at-large bids, compete in the First Four games to advance to the 64-team bracket in the first round. The teams met again on April 7, 2015 in the national championship game. In comparison, the contract for the men's tournament is valued at over $700 million annually. The stage appeared set for a rematch with Mississippi State in the championship game, but historic rival Notre Dame beat UConn in the semifinal with another overtime last second shot by Arike Ogunbowale. During his tenure with Team USA, they won the 2010 and 2014 World Cups, plus Olympic gold medals in 2012 and 2016. The following year, USC won the national title at Pauley Pavilion, the home court of its Los Angeles arch-rival UCLA. UConn also signed a landmark deal during the season with Connecticut Public Television to broadcast their games.[18]. Division regular season and conference tournament champion The top teams (eight in the 32-, 40-, and 48-team formats, and 16 in the 64-team format) were ranked and seeded on a national basis. UConn became the first team to win a championship without a senior on their roster.[34][35]. Baylor and Stanford have each won three, while South Carolina, Notre Dame, Louisiana Tech and This was during the AIAW era for women's basketball. 1 in WNBA draft - ESPN", "Connecticut Huskies' 90-Game Win Streak - Women's College Basketball Topics - ESPN", "Maya Moore Becomes First Women's Basketball Player Signed To Jordan Brand", "Breanna Stewart, Stefanie Dolson lead UConn to record 9th title", "UConn holds off Notre Dame to claim 10th national title", "Geno Auriemma passes John Wooden with his 11th NCAA title", "With fourth title in hand, Breanna Stewart delivers for UConn", "Geno Auriemma: "We Need A Good Old-Fashioned Ass-Kicking", "Kia Nurse, Gabby Williams have emerged as leaders as UConn women chase history", "UConn Women Win 90th Straight, Tying Their Own Record", "UConn women's basketball wins 100th straight game, beats South Carolina 66-55", "Connecticut's 111-Game Winning Streak Ends With Loss to Mississippi State", "UConn Is 1 Win From Being The Streakiest College Team Ever", "UConn Transfer Azura Stevens Talks Excitement To Play For Huskies", "Notre Dame, a UConn Nemesis, Topples the Huskies in a Final Four Thriller", "Geno Auriemma wins 1000th game as UConn beats Oklahoma 88-64", "DI Women's Basketball Championship History", "NCAA tournaments canceled over coronavirus", "Big East Conference Statistical Archives", "Connecticut's Geno Auriemma keeps making a case to be considered the greatest basketball coach", "Who's the best coach ever? Additionally, junior guard Caroline Doty would be out the entire season due to a third knee injury. Stewart finished with 2,676 points (2nd Husky ever), 1,179 rebounds (4th Husky ever), 426 assists and 414 blocked shots (1st Husky ever), and was a #1 pick in 2016 WNBA draft. The next game, with Bascom's blessing, and assistance from friend and Villanova head coach Harry Perretta, Auriemma arranged to have Sales, who was on crutches, score a basket and then allow Villanova to score a basket to start the game at 22. Connecticut returned every key player and added Duke's transfer Azur Stevens[67] and nation top ranked recruit Megan Walker; the team easily reached the Final Four with a 360 record that included solid wins over Stanford, Notre Dame, Louisville and South Carolina. Connecticut's final season record was 361 and Shea Ralph was named the Final Four's MVP. Teams were allowed to play at home, if hosting. No. [64], After easy wins in both conference regular season and conference tournament, UConn entered the NCAA tournament unbeaten, #1 overall and once again a heavy favorite to win it all; the season came to an unexpected end when Mississippi State's Morgan William hit a buzzer-beater to give its team a 6664 overtime victory in the NCAA Final Four. On February 28 she was enshrined in the Huskies of Honor (3rd time ever for an active player). Twenty UConn players have been selected in the first round of WNBA drafts. Branded athletically as "UConn" since the 201314 season. Language links are at the top of the page across from the title. 6 Creighton 85, No. [82] UConn's announcement did not make it clear whether both numbers would be retired across both men's and women's programs, but a university spokesperson clarified that the retirements applied only to the teams that Lobo and Allen competed for, meaning that #50 remains available in men's basketball and #34 in women's. Like the men's version, the women's First Four involves the four lowest-ranked conference champions playing for 16 seeds in the round of 64, and the four lowest-ranked at-large teams playing for their own spots in the round of 64.[5]. [16], The 199495 UConn team was widely credited with increasing interest in women's basketball. Maya Moore returned for her senior season after a summer with the U.S. National team, but UConn lost major contributors Tina Charles and Kalana Greene who graduated in 2010. Two key rivals were the usual conference foe Notre Dame and the new rival Baylor, who had the nation's top player in Brittney Griner. LSU has won its first NCAA women's basketball title, overpowering Iowa with a 102-85 victory on Sunday, scoring the most points ever in a women's title game. While other #1 seeds Notre Dame, South Carolina and Baylor suffered early upsets in the NCAA Tournament, UConn easily advanced to the Final Four where they defeated Oregon State 8051 and then old Big East rival Syracuse 8251 in the Championship Game. The #7 seed is 7137 against the #10 seed (.657). [2] The tournament is often overshadowed by the more-prominent men's tournament; after a gender equality review following the 2021 tournament, the NCAA expanded it to the current 68-team format of the men's tournament, and extended the "March Madness" branding to the tournament as well. 7 championship games have featured two teams from the same conference (winner listed first and bolded): Broadcast rights to the NCAA women's basketball tournament are included in a larger package covering most NCAA Division I championships,[13][14] outside of men's basketball (which is held by CBS and Warner Bros. [10] As, by definition, a team would have to win its conference tournament, and thus secure an automatic bid to the tournament, to be undefeated in a season, the only way a team could finish undefeated and not reach the tournament is if the team is banned from postseason play.