The bracket is officially set. Last night, UConn earned the No. 1 overall seed in the Fort Worth 1 Region and now knows its path to a 13th national championship. The Huskies’ quadrant features a host of former players, a few previous opponents and some local ties as well.

There will be plenty to talk about during each round of the NCAA Tournament. Let’s break down the bracket, first with the top storylines followed by everyone else:

Though it had been expected, Vanderbilt officially landed in the Fort Worth 1 Regional as the 2-seed, setting up a potential Elite Eight matchup between Shea Ralph and her alma mater.

The Commodores were a 1-seed in the first bracket reveal back in February but suffered a bad loss at Georgia, then got blown out by Ole Miss in the SEC Tournament. Since two top-four seeds from the same conference can’t occupy the same region, Vanderbilt had to be placed with either UConn or UCLA. The Commodores ultimately slipped behind LSU, which sent them to the Huskies’ quadrant.

That’s the official explanation, at least. Auriemma isn’t quite so convinced.

“I haven't looked at it close enough, but the way it was explained to me, that would be like they are the number eight team in the country. I find that hard to believe. I find that hard to believe,” he said. “Hopefully they were put there because that's where they deserve to be, not because of some ulterior motive… That would be disrespectful to Vanderbilt and to Shea.”

The Commodores are currently in the midst of their best season in Ralph’s five-year tenure. They own a 27-4 record, recording wins over 1-seed Texas as well as 2-seeds LSU and Michigan. Star point guard Mikayla Blakes leads the nation in scoring at 27.0 points and is the only serious competition to Sarah Strong for the National Player of the Year awards.

“I'm really proud of her,” Auriemma said of Ralph. “I mean, she's Coach of the Year in the country. Unbelievable, what they've done. So I'm really happy for Shea. It sucks for us and for them.”

There’s no guarantee the two teams will actually play each other, though. Since the two teams are on opposite sides of the bracket, both need to win their first three games to meet in the Elite Eight.

“They've got a tough road to get to us, and we don't necessarily have an easy road either to get to them,” Auriemma said. “So a lot has to happen between now and then, and that's why you play the games.”

For the third straight year, UConn will play a new opponent in its NCAA Tournament opener. In 2024, the Huskies faced Jackson State. Last season, they took on Arkansas State. Now, they’ll go up against UTSA.

Beyond that, remember the American? The godforsaken conference that UConn suffered in for seven seasons and never lost a game? UTSA is the league’s sole representative in the 2026 NCAA Tournament. To repeat: The champion of the Huskies’ former conference is a 16-seed. So while the Big East hasn’t been great for UConn, it could be so, so, SO much worse.

Before Auriemma ruled March, he actually struggled to get his first NCAA Tournament win. UConn lost its first two appearances and nearly fell to 0-3. In 1991, the 3-seeded Huskies hosted 11-seed Toledo at Gampel Pavilion and found themselves in a dogfight.

Kerry Bascom needed to drop a then-school record 39 points, capped off by a three-point play with 19 seconds left, to put the Huskies ahead by one. On the final possession, the Rockets missed two crucial free throws but rebounded their own miss and drew another foul.

But after a long discussion, the officials ruled that the clock had expired before the foul occurred. The game was over and UConn had its first NCAA Tournament win.

The coach of that Toledo team? Bill Fennelly, now in his 31st season at Iowa State. The Cyclones are the 8-seed in Storrs — and Auriemma doesn’t like it.

“When I saw Iowa State on there, I thought, ‘Man, our very first regional, you know who we beat to go to the regionals? Bill Fennelly and his Toledo team. Now? Son of a bitch, he’s coming back up to campus just to torment me. I know it. I can feel it,’” Auriemma laughed.

Talk about deja vu. If Syracuse can knock off Iowa State, it’ll face UConn in the second round for the third time in the last nine tournaments, following 2017 and 2024. The Huskies also defeated the Orange in the 2016 national championship game, which would make this their fourth meeting in the last 10 NCAA Tournaments.

UConn could run into two former players in the Sweet Sixteen if Maryland makes it to Fort Worth: Saylor Poffenbarger and Mir McLean. Poffenbarger leads the Terrapins with 7.0 rebounds and 3.3 assists while also putting up 9.8 points and 1.9 steals. McLean has appeared in 30 of 31 games but only sees 13.4 minutes per night.

UConn’s biggest rival comes in as the 6-seed in the Fort Worth 1 Region. While every NCAA Tournament meeting between the schools has come in the Final Four, they could potentially see each other in the Elite Eight this season.

That seems unlikely, though. Beyond their seeding, the Fighting Irish have lost in the Sweet Sixteen in all four NCAA Tournament appearances under head coach Niele Ivey.

Notre Dame might avoid UConn but it still has to open March Madness against a team from Connecticut: The Fairfield Stags.

Carly Thibault-DuDonis’ squad is in the big dance for the third straight year, though it’s still searching for its first win. This season, the Stags are 28-4 and have lost just once since Dec. 4.

Auriemma is glad they’re on the other side of the bracket.

“Teams like Fairfield, Princeton, Richmond…are the kind of teams that you're not excited about playing them in the NCCA Tournament because you probably haven't seen much of them, and they're really good,” he said. “They managed to play some teams outside their league that are really good, and they're always way better than you think they're going to be. I think Carly's done an amazing job down there. I really do.”

One of two teams that UConn has already faced this season in the Fort Worth 1 Region (along with Notre Dame), Ohio State earned a 3-seed despite featuring just three upperclassmen on its roster.

If the teams meet in the Elite Eight, the Huskies would finally have a chance to exact revenge on the Buckeyes for snapping their Final Four streak in the Sweet Sixteen back in 2023. The two schools were slated to meet again in the same round the following season, only for Ohio State to get upset in the second round.

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Illinois is back in the big dance for the third time in four years under Shauna Green after missing out in the 19 years prior. The one time the Illini failed to make the field of 68 during that stretch, they won the WBIT — women’s basketball’s version of the NIT.

After back-to-back trips to the Sweet Sixteen in 2023 and 2024, Colorado watched the NCAA Tournament from home last season. Now, the Buffaloes are back after earning the last bye in the field.

Illinois and Colorado will square off in the first round at Vanderbilt’s Memorial Gymnasium in Nashville.

Winners of the Missouri Valley Conference, Murray State went 19-1 in league play and punched its second-straight ticket to the NCAA Tournament on the back of a 15-game winning streak. The Racers will play 5-seed Maryland in the first round in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

Evelyn Adebayo transferred to UConn from Murray State back in 2019.

Despite losing leading scorer Raegan McCowan to a season-ending elbow injury in December, Western Illinois tied a program-record with 26 wins and returned to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2017. Senior Mia Nicastro averages 24.3 points, most in the country outside the four power conferences.

The Leathernecks (what a nickname) will take on 4-seed North Carolina.

For the fourth year in a row, Howard and Norfolk State squared off in the MEAC Conference championship game. After the Spartans claimed the last three crowns, the Bison finally broke through this year to return to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2022.

In 2021, UConn opened the NCAA Tournament against High Point, but Ralph wasn’t on the sidelines for that game. She left the team bubble in San Antonio after a family member tested positive for COVID-19 and had to watch the Huskies’ 102-59 win from home.

Now, she’ll finally get to take on the Panthers, but this time with Vanderbilt.