Women's Bracketology: 2025 NCAA tournament

By Charlie Creme Updated: 4/24/2025 at 9:00 a.m. ET

Change was everywhere this past season as college basketball moved to 31 conferences and a Power 4. Two leagues put at least 10 teams in the NCAA tournament, and units were finally paid to conferences for success in March Madness. But calm should reign in 2025-26. Players are still transferring and changing schools at breakneck speed, but the system will stay consistent for one more year (until the Pac-12 comes back to life for 2026-27, returning the tournament to 32 automatic bids). The 2026 Final Four shifts west to Phoenix, with regionals being played in Fort Worth, Texas, and Sacramento, California.

Bracket Watch

Anticipate consistency among many of the best teams, too. The top four seeds in our initial look at the 2026 NCAA bracket are the same that reached the Final Four three weeks ago. Despite each losing important personnel, South Carolina, UConn, UCLA and Texas will head into next season as the favorites. Much of next year also depends on the status of JuJu Watkins, whose ACL injury was a huge blow to USC in this NCAA tournament but also greatly impacts the Trojans' outlook for next season. The Big Ten once again projects to have the most bids, but the SEC should carry the most quality at the top. Five SEC schools are either No. 1 or No. 2 seeds in this projection, and seven are in the top 16.

On the Bubble

Last Four Byes

Last Four In

First Four Out

Next Four Out

68-Team Bracket

Region 1 Fort Worth

Columbia

1 South Carolina - aq
16 Texas Southern - aq/
Fairleigh Dickinson - aq
8 Minnesota
9 Virginia

Waco

Nashville

Durham

Region 4 Sacramento

Austin

Ames

College Park

Baton Rouge

Region 2 Fort Worth

Storrs

Ann Arbor

Raleigh

Knoxville

Region 3 Sacramento

Los Angeles

Oxford

Chapel Hill

Norman

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.