Way to early women's NCAA Tournament frauds

As conference champions and automatic bids begin to roll in, the bracket for this year's NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament is filling up. First through 16 seeds are all searching to submit their names in history and overcome March Madness.

Here is a way to break down which teams might bust brackets, pending they receive a bid to the tournament.

Texas

Despite being from a hot state, Texas is going cold at the wrong time. The Longhorns had just been crowned the SEC champions in their inaugural year with the conference when things began to get trippy.

After a shaky trip to the conference championship, the Longhorns were embarrassed in their SEC tournament loss. This loss was to South Carolina, as the Gamecocks won 64-45.

This loss recently dropped Texas from the No. 1 seed to the No. 5 seed, putting it in a more difficult bracket spot. This loss wasn’t the sole reason for making this list, though. The team finished with a 31-4 record, largely dominating their conference. However, Texas only faced one top-five team. The Longhorns seem incapable of figuring out how to get the job done on the court.

Texas does have Madison Booker, who was just named SEC Player of the Year, but one player cannot lead a team to a championship.

Fans can expect this team to make a deep run, but once evenly matched, Texas is not the team to get it done.

UConn

Onto a team that did win their conference tournament. The 31-3 Paige Bueckers-led UConn Huskies. The team has had incredible success in the season based on their ability to finish games. However, conference difficulty is something to consider before scripting one's bracket.

UConn showed its strong dominance within its conference early on, even by winning its conference championship by 20 points. However, all three of the team's losses come from non-conference opponents: Tennessee, USC and Notre Dame.

Much like Texas, this raises concerns for the team once they are put in a pool of majority non-conference opponents. If a team can find a way to lock up Bueckers, who averages 19 points per game, there could be a very early exit on the line for the Huskies.

Ohio State

Ohio State managed a run to the Big Ten semifinals, receiving a hard exit after falling 75-46 to UCLA. The Buckeyes ended the third quarter down 37 points to the eventual conference championship-winning Bruins. It was a program record, but not the kind fans want to see.

This team finished 13-5, but it is still projected to have high outcomes headed into the NCAA tournament due to senior forward Taylor Thierry, who was named as a semifinalist for the 2025 Naismith Women’s College Basketball Defensive Player of the Year award.

However, the team lacks offensive consistency. Ohio State would likely face an opponent such as South Carolina in the third round, ending its run there. The Buckeyes will need their electric defense to shut down teams game after game. Ohio State has forced 12.6 steals per game, which leads the conference and is two more per game than last season, and will need this, along with its half-court press implemented to its fullest extent, to further its postseason action.

Bronwyn Liber is a second-year majoring in broadcast journalism. To contact her, email brl5354@psu.edu.