NCAA Women's Basketball Bracket 2013: Breaking Down Top Contenders for Title

The women's 2013 NCAA Tournament bracket has been released (via NCAA.com), much like the men's bracket was yesterday (printable version here).

Baylor will head into the tournament this year as the overwhelming favorite for postseason success, which is definitely understandable given their dominance over the past few years. However, several teams will still be big threats to the Lady Bears in their bid for another championship this year, and could well push the hot favorites all the way in the tournament this year.

Read on to see a full bracket listing and all the tournament details as well as the top contenders for the NCAA Tournament title this year.

NCAA Tournament Details

First and Second Rounds: Sat., March 23 through Tues., March 26

Regionals: Sat., March 30 through Tues., April 2

Final Four: Sun., April 7

Championship Game: Tues., April 9

Full Tournament Bracket and Seeds

A full tournament bracket can be seen here via NCAA.com

	Oklahoma City Regional	Spokane Regional	Norfolk Regional	Bridgeport Regional
1	Baylor	Stanford	Notre Dame	Connecticut
2	Tennessee	California	Duke	Kentucky
3	UCLA	Penn State	Texas A&M	North Carolina
4	Purdue	Georgia	South Carolina	Maryland
5	Louisville	Iowa State	Colorado	Michigan State
6	Oklahoma	LSU	Nebraska	Delaware
7	Syracuse	Texas Tech	Oklahoma State	Dayton
8	Florida State	Michigan	Miami (FL)	Vanderbilt
9	Princeton	Villanova	Iowa	Saint Joseph's
10	Creighton	South Florida	DePaul	St. John's
11	Central Michigan	Green Bay	Chattanooga	West Virginia
12	Middle Tennessee	Gonzaga	Kansas	Marist
13	Liberty	Montana	South Dakota State	Quinnipiac
14	Stetson	Cal Pony	Wichita State	Albany
15	Oral Roberts	Fresno State	Hampton	Navy
16	Prairie View A&M	Tulsa	Tennessee-Martin	Idaho

Contenders for 2013 NCAA Title

Baylor Lady Bears

As mentioned, Baylor will be the team to beat in the tournament this year, given its incredible record in recent three years. The Lady Bears have chalked up over 100 wins with just four losses against them in three years and recently won their third straight Big 12 Tournament title.

They'll be gunning for another NCAA title here, and with Brittney Griner in their squad, it's very hard to consider the Lady Bears as anything other than champions.

Griner is simply phenomenal on the court, with no player able to match her. And when combined with the rest of Baylor's strong squad, they appear unbeatable.

Look for the Lady Bears to win another NCAA title in 2013.

Stanford Cardinals

Stanford are one of the few teams that seem to have the ability capable of knocking off Baylor, and it will be looking to do just that in the NCAA Tournament.

The Cardinals haven't lost since January and won their way through a tricky Pac-12 schedule, finishing the year with an impressive 31-2 record.

Chiney Ogwumike is to Stanford what Griner is to Baylor, and if the star forward can get going in the tournament this year, the Cardinals will be tough to beat. Especially given that Stanford is the only team to have beaten the Lady Bears in the past two years.

They'll be looking to repeat that with a strong showing in this one. 

Notre Dame Fighting Irish

Having suffered a huge defeat by Baylor in the 2012 NCAA Tournament final, Notre Dame will be looking for revenge when it takes the court in 2013.

Skylar Diggins is a great offensive threat for the Fighting Irish, and if she can find her range early in the tournament, could prove to be a huge weapon down the stretch. For a team that finished the season with just one loss (to Baylor), that could mean big things for Notre Dame.

The Irish have a plethora of good scorers on their team and produce good results on defense as well. Whether that is enough to carry them to the NCAA Tournament title in 2013 or not still remains to be seen, but they'll certainly still be a very tough team to beat this year.

Make your picks for the 2013 NCAA Tournament here with the Bracket Challenge Game, or print out your 2013 March Madness bracket here.

Can anybody stop Baylor from winning the 2013 NCAA Tournament?

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