NCAA Women's Basketball Tournament 2023: Odds, Players to Watch in Sweet 16 Bracket
The upsets over the first weekend of the NCAA women's basketball tournament set up the potential for two of the sport's top scorers to play two more games.
Caitlin Clark and the Iowa Hawkeyes are the best team remaining in the Seattle 4 region after the top-seeded Stanford Cardinal lost in the second round, and Maddy Siegrist's Villanova Wildcats caught a break when the Indiana Hoosiers lost as the top seed in the Greenville 2 region.
Iowa and Villanova are favored to win their Sweet 16 contests. Wins in those matchups could set up the chance for two of the nation's three-best scorers to make Final Four trips to Dallas.
Winning a national championship seems like an unlikely goal for Iowa, Villanova and most of the other teams that made it to the second weekend because of how dominant the South Carolina Gamecocks have been.
South Carolina added to its 34-0 record with two easy victories, and there are, seemingly, few teams that can come close to stopping the national champion.
NCAA Women's Tournament Odds
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South Carolina (-275; bet $275 to win $100)
UConn (+750; bet $100 to win $750)
LSU (+1000)
Iowa (+1200)
Virginia Tech (+4000)
Tennessee (+4000)
Utah (+5000)
Maryland (+6000)
Notre Dame (+8000)
Villanova (+8000)
Ohio State (+10000)
Louisville (+10000)
Ole Miss (+10000)
Colorado (+20000)
Miami (+30000)
UCLA (+50000)
Caitlin Clark, Iowa
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Caitlin Clark is the most recognizable individual name in women's college basketball.
The Iowa star regularly puts up 20-30-point performances for the Hawkeyes, and she will be expected to do the same in the Sweet 16 and Elite Eight.
Clark kicked off the NCAA tournament with back-to-back double-doubles. She had 26 points and 12 assists in the first round and 22 points and 12 assists in the second. She was three rebounds away from a first-round triple-double.
The 21-year-old is the third-best scorer in Division I with 26.8 points per game, and she leads the nation with 8.6 assists per contest.
The Hawkeyes will go as far as Clark carries them in the women's NCAA tournament, which could be a Final Four showdown with South Carolina.
Iowa is the best team left in the Seattle 4 region. It is also the only top-four seed remaining in that part of the bracket after Stanford, Duke Blue Devils and Texas Longhorns suffered second-round upsets.
Maddy Siegrist, Villanova
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Maddy Siegrist averages 2.4 more points per game than Clark.
The country's leading scorer guided Villanova into the Sweet 16 with 66 total points in the first two rounds.
Siegrist reached the 30-point mark in four of her last six games and has two double-doubles in that span as well. She ranks 49th in the nation in rebounds per game.
The 22-year-old has the opportunity to play at least two more games after the Greenville 2 bracket opened up for the fourth-seeded Wildcats.
Villanova is favored to get into the Elite Eight over the Miami Hurricanes, which are the lowest seed left at No. 9 after their win against Indiana.
Siegrist will be expected to put up another excellent individual performance to get into the Elite Eight to face either the LSU Tigers or Utah Utes.
Villanova would be the underdog in either of those contests, but with Siegrist at her best, the Wildcats have a chance to earn a surprise Final Four berth.
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Angel Reese, LSU
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A potential LSU-Villanova matchup in the Elite Eight would pit two of the best individual players in the country against each other.
LSU's Angel Reese ranks fifth in points per game and second in rebounds per contest. She totaled a staggering 25 points and 24 rebounds in LSU's second-round win over the Michigan Wolverines.
That was not Reese's single-game high in rebounds this season, though. She recorded 28 and 26 rebounds in SEC play.
The 20-year-old will be difficult for any team to stop, and she could be the difference in LSU advancing past Utah in the Sweet 16 and then over Villanova in the Elite Eight.
Before Reese and LSU can think about guarding Siegrist, they have to deal with Utah's Alissa Pili, who is averaging 21.6 points per game.
The Reese-Pili battle is one of the best individual contests in the Sweet 16, with the latter coming off 21- and 32-point performances in the first two rounds.
If LSU advances to the Final Four, it will be because Reese won her individual battles with Pili and Siegrist.
Even then, though, the Tigers will not be considered the favorite to reach the national championship if UConn emerges from the Seattle 3 region.
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