Who are the top 16 seeds in women’s basketball right now?
During halftime of Monday’s Oregon-UConn game (ESPN2/ESPN App, 7 p.m. ET), the NCAA selection committee will reveal its top 16 teams through this point of the season. Over the past five years, these midseason reveals have provided some insight into how the committee members might be thinking or how certain teams are viewed.
Last season, 14 of the 16 teams the committee announced in its first reveal ended up being in the top 16 on Selection Monday. Three of the four No. 1 seeds remained the same on Selection Monday as well.
So even though we still have five weeks left in the regular season, these first reveals can indicate how the NCAA tournament bracket will look. And landing in the top 16 come Selection Monday means hosting first- and second-round games.
Which teams are in the top 16 today? Here is how they lined up in the latest Bracketology projection and what their status might be with the committee.
The Gamecocks continue to have the best résumé in the country and should be an easy choice as the committee’s No. 1 overall team. They have 10 Quadrant 1 wins (victories against teams in the RPI top 50). No one else has more than seven. A few tests remain, most notably next Monday at home vs. UConn, but a No. 1 seed and staying close to home in the Greenville Regional seem inevitable.
Like South Carolina, the Lady Bears seem to be headed for a No. 1 seed. Winners of 49 straight Big 12 games, Baylor might not be challenged the rest of the regular season. It would take a monumental upset — perhaps even two — to knock the Lady Bears from a No. 1 seed and placement in Dallas.
Heading into Monday’s game in Storrs, the Ducks are ranked No. 1 in the RPI. Beating UConn would place an even stronger hold on that distinction. Likely more important to Oregon is being placed in the Portland region. Staying in front of the Pac-12 the rest of the season is one way to lock that in.
The Cardinals’ ascent to a top seed was fairly quiet with South Carolina, Oregon and UConn garnering much of the attention. Perhaps the down year in the ACC also contributed to that, but the committee shouldn’t overlook Louisville as one of the four No. 1 seeds.
The Huskies’ hopes for a No. 1 seed come down to Monday’s game against Oregon and the Feb. 10 game at South Carolina. Nothing they do in the AAC will help the résumé. The loss to Baylor and only playing AAC teams has cost UConn seven spots in the RPI in three weeks. Still, the Huskies are likely looking at nothing worse than a No. 2 seed. The more interesting part of the process is where the committee assigns UConn.
Losing to Texas and getting blown out by Oregon probably precludes the Cardinal from having a realistic chance to be a No. 1 seed. The health of freshman Haley Jones, the team’s third-leading scorer, is a story to watch. If she is unable to return and the Cardinal lose a game or two before the Pac-12 tournament, this spot on the No. 2 seed line could be in jeopardy.
The Wolfpack’s placement is the most intriguing storyline to watch for Monday night. With four Pac-12 teams among this projected top 10, coupled with the previous committees’ desire to spread out teams from the same conference, especially among the top-four seeds in each region, other teams might wind up with unusual regional geographical assignments. This week’s projection has NC State in Portland because the other two No. 2 seeds from the Pac-12 are being kept out of the same region as Oregon. Will the committee also feel that the Wolfpack are the team that should have to travel that distance?
The same could be said about the placement of the Beavers. This projection has them going east to Greenville, a byproduct of Oregon’s presence in Portland. Their hold on a No. 2 seed isn’t unbreakable, either. Oregon State, with three straight losses before two wins this week, is a team the committee could view more harshly.
The Bulldogs gave South Carolina all it could handle two weeks ago but have also had games where they were the heavy favorite and struggled. How the committee views those games — and the fact that Mississippi State has the easiest SEC schedule in the conference — will determine if the Bulldogs have a chance to be an even higher seed.
The trouncing the Bruins took on Friday night at the hands of Arizona was alarming. UCLA had largely been playing the bottom half of the Pac-12, so this jump back into the league’s better half and the accompanying 26-point loss hurt the Bruins’ chances to be anything better than a No. 3 seed.
The Zags are one five-minute overtime period against Stanford away from being unbeaten. If that were the case, Gonzaga would be threatening to be a No. 2 seed. The committee should still reward the Bulldogs with hosting first- and second-round games. Anything higher than a No. 3 seed is hard to justify with only two Quadrant 1 wins. The WCC schedule isn’t helping. Gonzaga has just two more games in the regular season against opponent with winning records.
The Hawkeyes were a No. 2 seed heading into Sunday, but then came the 15-point loss to Michigan. Still, Iowa has exceeded expectations all season and wasn’t expected to be in the discussion to host.
One of the more upwardly mobile teams of the past two weeks, the Terrapins are starting to play more like the team most thought they would be in the preseason. They have won six straight and are now in the top 10 of the RPI. That should be enough for Maryland to show up on the committee’s list on Monday, but there are enough holes in the résumé from earlier in the season that it’s not a guarantee.
No team has surprised more than Northwestern this season. Few people would have expected as February arrived that the Wildcats would be in the conversation for the NCAA tournament, let alone hosting games. The AP voters were a little late to arrive on recognizing Northwestern. Will the committee do the same?
The Blue Demons are here because of their dominance in the Big East and being just competitive enough in losses to Oregon State and UConn. The loss to Creighton on Friday night makes DePaul’s spot more tentative, but Doug Bruno’s team has remained more consistent than some of the other competitors for these final places in the top 16.
The decision to include the Hoosiers here and not Arizona was difficult and one the committee might see differently. The Wildcats’ impressive blowout of UCLA on Friday certainly had to make committee members take notice, but past committees have consistently valued teams that schedule up as much as possible. Indiana played Baylor, South Carolina and UCLA outside the Big Ten, and its nonconference schedule strength ranked 12th. Arizona’s out of conference schedule was ranked 337th.