Women's Bracketology: 2023 NCAA tournament

By Charlie Creme Updated: 2/24/2023 at 9:30 a.m. ET

The women's NCAA tournament will undergo significant change for the second consecutive season. The field expanded to 68 teams last year. This season, the customary four regional sites have been reduced to two: Seattle and Greenville, South Carolina. The top 16 teams will continue to host the first and second rounds, and the First Four games will again be played at the site of the first-round games to which they feed. Defending champion South Carolina is the heavy favorite, and the Gamecocks seek to become the first repeat champions since UConn in 2015-16. The Final Four is March 31 and April 2 at American Airlines Center in Dallas.

ESPN: Conference tournaments -- Schedules, tickets punched

ESPN: Women's NCAA tournament schedule, sites

Bracket Watch

How quickly can things change? Arizona was the No. 15 team in the NCAA selection committee's reveal Thursday, but the Wildcats are already out of the top 16 after losing to Oregon later Thursday night. The Pac-12 put two teams on the top line in the reveal, as Utah was the fourth No. 1 seed. A win over Stanford on Saturday, plus a deep run in the Pac-12 tournament, and the Utes are looking at an actual No. 1 seed come Selection Sunday (their previous highest seed was a No. 5, in 2006). Colorado replaced Arizona in the top 16, and UCLA also maintained the Pac-12's good showing by qualifying as a No. 5 seed -- but the Bruins had to be exchanged with Tennessee to accommodate bracketing procedures. The committee is allowed to move a team one seed line to maintain bracketing principles. With six ACC teams and five Pac-12 squads in the first six seed lines, and five Big Ten teams packed into the top 16, get used to the idea that some seeds might need to be moved in the final bracket on March 12 as well.

On the Bubble

Last Four Byes

Last Four In

First Four Out

Next Four Out

68-Team Bracket

Greenville 1

Columbia

Ann Arbor

Iowa City

Blacksburg

Seattle 4

Salt Lake City

Austin

Columbus

Baton Rouge

Greenville 2

Bloomington

Boulder

South Bend

Storrs

Seattle 3

Stanford

Villanova

Durham

College Park

Conference Breakdown

Conference

Team

Photo illo by ESPN Illustration, additional photos courtesy of Getty Images, Associated Press, Imagn, Icon Sportswire, EPA/Shutterstock

RULES

ESPN's Bracketology efforts are focused on projecting the NCAA tournament field just as we expect the NCAA Division I basketball committee to select the field in March. ESPN bracketologist Charlie Creme uses the same data points favored by the committee, including strength of schedule and other season-long indicators, including the NET and team-sheet data similar to what is available to the NCAA, in his projections of the field. Visit the NCAA's website for a fuller understanding of NCAA selection criteria.

64-Team Bracket

The 64-team bracket is the standard version of the NCAA tournament field that has been in place since 1994. If the 2021 field is comprised of 64 teams, there will be some key differences to past years, however.

The primary adjustment from a normal year is, of course, the playing of the entire NCAA tournament at a single site. This eliminates the need for geographical considerations in seeding. Additionally, there will be at least one fewer automatic qualifier this season, as the Ivy League's decision to forgo the 2020-21 season reduces the number of AQ entries to 31 for this season.

48-Team Bracket

In this projection, a condensed selection process would reduce the field by eight at-large teams and eight automatic qualifiers (the latter of which still receive a revenue unit). The top four seeds in each region would receive a bye into the second round, with four first-round games per region - 5 vs. 12, 6 vs. 11, 7 vs. 10 and 8 vs. 9.

16-Team Bracket

In this projection, the committee selects and seeds the 16 best available teams. There are no automatic qualifiers, although all non-competing conference champions receive the designated revenue unit.

To maintain some sense of national balance, conference participation is capped at four teams. And no region shall have more than one team from the same conference.