NCAA women’s basketball: Final Four predictions as 2026 national championship field is set

Now that the Women’s Final Four is set, the teams are headed to Phoenix for the biggest weekend in college basketball. As predicted, the Final Four teams are the four No. 1 seeds of the tournament: UConn, South Carolina, UCLA and Texas. They have been in a league of their own all season long, and it feels like we are entering a new phase of the tournament. A phase where the winners aren’t as locked in as they have felt in previous rounds.

As unpredictable as the Final Four is, let’s dive into a few guesses about the upcoming matchups.

Texas making the Championship Game

Watching Texas absolutely dominate a strong Michigan team in the Elite Eight put their incredible team chemistry on display. From their stars in Harmon and Booker to their walk-on, Sarah Graves, who gets the largest crowd pop of all when she checks into games, the Longhorns are a well-oiled machine.

They play a tough brand of defense, and that will come in handy when playing the guard-heavy, sharpshooting UCLA Bruins. UCLA struggled to score around Duke’s defense in the Elite Eight, recovering later on in the game by putting Toby Fournier in foul trouble and playing through the post. That will have to be their strategy going into Texas as well.

Texas has already beaten UCLA this season, so there’s precedent for this one as well. Yet, UCLA may see that as motivation to come out on top this time. Either way, it’s going to be a great game.

UConn playing ‘Strong’ in Final Four

The UConn vs South Carolina match-up in the Final Four is a rematch of the Championship game from last year. While these rosters are mostly the same, some key differences will impact how this game plays out.

For South Carolina, they don’t have their key front-court players from last season in Chloe Kitts and Ashlyn Watkins, but they also added a veteran scorer in Ta’Niya Latson to their roster. On UConn’s side, they don’t have Paige Bueckers anymore, but Sarah Strong and Azzi Fudd have led UConn to an undefeated season so far.

Both teams have a freshman who has made a huge impact on their tournament games: Agot Makeer for South Carolina and Blanca Quinonez for UConn. Both teams have high-clip scorers, strong defense, and Hall of Fame-worthy coaches.

UConn does have a little bit of an advantage depth-wise in their front court, given that Sarah Strong, Serah Williams, Jana El Alfy and Quinonez all bring size to their lineups. It will be interesting to see how South Carolina matches up in the interior. Sarah Strong may be able to feast on the inside.

UConn could repeat as National Champs

Per ESPN’s Bracket Tournament app, 45.7% of bracket-makers predicted UConn would win the National Championship this season. The undefeated Huskies haven’t had too much adversity on the road to the Final Four, but this will be their toughest weekend of competition yet.

While Texas, South Carolina and UCLA have all played at least one of the other Final Four teams this season, UConn has not played any of the three other teams. There is no precedent for how this unique UConn roster will be affected by Texas, South Carolina or UCLA, but that logic also flips around on the other three teams as well. We don’t know what strengths and weaknesses the other teams have against this tough UConn team.

The big question all season has been ‘who can beat UConn?’ and this weekend, we will finally get to see if anyone can. If not, the Huskies will win a second consecutive National Title.