Selection Sunday Preview: UConn likely the fifth overall seed

How to watch

Date: Sunday, Mar. 16

Time: 8 p.m. ET

TV: ESPN

Stream: ESPN.com/watch

We’re just over 24 hours from Selection Sunday when we’ll find out UConn women’s basketball’s path to a 12th national championship. The Huskies have already officially punched their ticket to the big dance with a Big East Championship earlier this week. Following the results of the power conference tournaments last weekend, some elements of UConn’s projected path have also become more clear.

While nothing will be official until Sunday’s Selection Show, the Huskies are likely locked into the fifth overall seed (the first No. 2 seed) in the field. They ended the season on a high note with a mid-February rout of South Carolina then finished undefeated in Big East play, but they don’t quite have enough Quad 1 wins to make it to the top seed line. UConn (5-3 in Quad 1) lags behind UCLA, South Carolina, USC and Texas, all of which have at least 13 Quad 1 wins thanks to the strength of the Big Ten and SEC this season. However, Notre Dame losing three of its last five games makes UConn the clear favorite for the first No. 2 seed.

As the projected fifth overall seed, the Huskies would share a region with the fourth No. 1 seed. That is projected to be Texas after the Longhorns struggled offensively through the SEC Tournament and lost by 19 to South Carolina in the championship. In addition to Texas, both ESPN’s Charlie Creme and I are project Kentucky and North Carolina as the No. 3 and No. 4 seeds in the region.

There are two regional sites for the women’s tournament this year: Birmingham, Alabama and Spokane, Washington. If Texas is the fourth No. 1 seed, that sends the Huskies to Birmingham for the regional rounds — which should be their preferred destination since they’ll get to stay in the eastern time zone for the full tournament. Additionally, heading to Birmingham over Spokane would eliminate two cross country trips should UConn advance to the regional rounds and Final Four in Tampa.

As a top-16 overall seed, the Huskies would host the first two rounds of the NCAA Tournament. In a Storrs subregional as a No. 2 seed, they would face a No. 15 seed in the first round and the winner of the 7/10 game in the second round. The No. 15 seed is likely to be Vermont, which won the America East championship yesterday, based on the Catamounts’ proximity to UConn. That would be a familiar matchup for the Huskies — they played Vermont in its tournament opener back in 2023.

The 7/10 matchup in UConn’s region is not yet nailed down given the Ivy League tournament is still underway. Currently, I’m projecting that matchup to be the Ivy League’s auto-qualifier, Columbia, as the No. 10 seed and Florida St. as the No. 7 seed.

A full look at my current projection of UConn’s region is below: