NCAAW Tournament 2025 Final Four Bracket After Bueckers, UConn Beat USC Without JuJu
Between the star power, powerhouse programs and the reigning national champions looking to defend their crown, fans couldn't have asked for much more from the 2025 NCAA women's basketball Final Four.
Texas and UConn clinched their spots in the national semifinals with victories over TCU and USC, respectively, on Monday and joined UCLA and South Carolina.
In something of an ironic twist, the Huskies are the only non-No. 1 seed that qualified for the Final Four in Tampa, Florida. Still, it's hard to call a program with 11 national championships an underdog.
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Paige Bueckers and Co. eliminated the top-seeded Trojans in the Spokane Regional on Monday in a game that lost some of its luster when USC star JuJu Watkins suffered a season-ending ACL tear earlier in the tournament.
As a result, UConn will face UCLA, while South Carolina will play Texas.
2025 NCAA Women's Final Four
No. 1 South Carolina vs. No. 1 Texas, Friday at 7 p.m. ET
No. 1 UCLA vs. No. 2 UConn, Friday at 9:30 p.m. ET
The full bracket can be found on NCAA.com.
Historically, UConn's presence in a Final Four would mean trouble for the other three teams given its overall dominance under head coach Geno Auriemma. However, Dawn Staley's South Carolina program enters this year's Final Four with more recent championship success.
The Gamecocks are the reigning champions and captured two of the last three national titles. What's more, this year marked a fifth consecutive trip to the Final Four, and they also aren't far removed from their 2017 national championship.
Staley is two wins away from four national titles in a nine-year span but first has to deal with a Texas program that kept pace with South Carolina throughout its first year in the SEC.
The Longhorns and Gamecocks each went 15-1 in conference play and split their head-to-head meetings in the regular season. The latter was awarded the No. 1 seed in the SEC tournament with a coin flip and then earned bragging rights with a blowout win in the conference title game.
Friday gives Texas the chance at some revenge on a national stage.
The winner of that one will face the victor of the showdown between UConn and UCLA.
Bueckers will generate the most headlines as the biggest star remaining in the tournament, and she is playing for the only thing missing from her illustrious resume in a national title. The Huskies haven't cut down the nets as national champions since 2016, which is an eternity by their elevated standards.
It wouldn't be a surprise if they end that drought given the way Bueckers has played this season and tournament, but UCLA will be anything but a pushover.
The Bruins won the Big Ten tournament with a victory over rival USC in the title game and parlayed that momentum into three straight wins by double digits to start the Big Dance before an Elite Eight triumph over LSU.
Lauren Betts has been unstoppable as a double-double machine down low and will look to match Bueckers' production with a spot in the national title game on the line.
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