2025 Women’s Final Four Preview: A Look at the South Carolina vs. Texas, UCLA vs. UConn Matchups

The Final Four are three No. 1 seeds and a No. 2. Eleven of the last 12 women’s champions were No. 1 seeds.

UConn guard Paige Bueckers (5) shoots while pressured by Oklahoma guard Lexy Keys during the first half in the Sweet 16 of the NCAA college basketball tournament in Spokane, Wash., March 29, 2025. Young Kwak/AP Photo

The 2025 Women’s NCAA Tournament is nearing its conclusion, but not before the best four teams in the nation tangle in Tampa, Florida. The Final Four takes place Friday, then the national championship game Sunday.

Three of the four teams left standing are No. 1 seeds, as the first Final Four matchup will see top-seed Texas taking on No. 1 South Carolina, before No. 1 UCLA faces No. 2 UConn.

Eleven of the last 12 women’s champions were No. 1 seeds, so history has the UConn Huskies at a disadvantage. But Connecticut has a massive advantage over the rest of the programs in terms of experience on this stage. This is the 24th Final Four appearance for UConn, which has 11 national championships. The other three schools have combined for 12 Final Fours and four national titles.

Here’s a look at the two matchups, which will be the 43rd edition of the Women’s NCAA Tournament semifinals.

Texas (35-3) vs. South Carolina (34-3)

The Men’s Final Four isn’t the only semifinal with an All-SEC matchup. The Longhorns and Gamecocks will square off for the fourth time this season, with each home team winning their pair of regular-season meetings, and then South Carolina taking their neutral-site contest in the SEC Tournament Final. Twice over the last 15 seasons have teams met four times in a single season, with the final coming in the NCAA Tournament, and to the delight of Texas, the team that led the series entering the fourth matchup was actually the team to lose that March Madness contest.

The Longhorns’ brand of basketball is straight out of the 1980s, a time when the three-point shot was almost an afterthought. The Longhorns average the third-fewest three-point attempts in the nation, but they also allow the second fewest three-pointers per game out of 362 Division I teams. While perimeter play won’t factor much into Saturday’s showdown with Carolina, ball movement will be paramount for Texas to prevail. The Horns averaged just 7.7 assists in their three games versus SC, compared with 16.9 assists in their 35 games against everyone else.

As for the Gamecocks, they’re in their fifth straight Final Four, so they have the experience edge, and they are the reigning champs. However, the last seven teams to go for back-to-back women’s titles failed to repeat. These Gamecocks, as has become tradition under Dawn Staley, are deep and boast a 10-player rotation. Eight of those players average at least 5.0 points per game, and the top two scorers, Joyce Edwards (12.7) and MiLaysia Fulwiley (11.9), come off the bench. South Carolina has been playing with fire recently, though, as this year’s tourney run hasn’t been as smooth as last year’s. The Gamecocks won both their Sweet 16 and Elite Eight matchups by just four points each, and they trailed in the fourth quarter of both games.

UCLA (34-2) vs. UConn (35-3)

The Bruins are the No. 1 overall seed in Women’s March Madness, but this will be their first Final Four appearance. As for UConn, while it may seem as if it has had a stranglehold on the Women’s NCAA Tournament over the last few decades, the Huskies haven’t cut down the nets since 2016. These programs didn’t meet this season, but they did square off in November 2023, with UCLA winning at a neutral site. That was the Bruins’ first-ever victory over UConn after dropping each of the first seven matchups with the Huskies.

UCLA is the best rebounding team, not just in the Final Four, but in the entire country, and embodies Pat Riley’s mantra of “No rebounds, no rings.” One of Riley’s players on the Miami Heat, Jaime Jaquez Jr., has a sister on UCLA in Gabriela Jaquez, who is coming off her second-highest scoring game of the season with 18 points in the Elite Eight win over LSU. But the Bruins run through 6-foot-7 center Lauren Betts, who is both a First-Team AP All-American and the Big Ten Defensive Player of the Year. She averages 20 points, 9.6 rebounds, and 3.0 blocks, and UCLA goes as she goes. The Bruins are 28-0 when she shoots at least 50 percent from the field, but UCLA is just 3-2 when she makes under half her shots.

The lone 2-seed in Tampa is, statistically, the best team in the country. UConn leads the nation in both offensive and defensive rating, and has arguably the best player in college basketball in Paige Bueckers. Not only is she flirting with the 50/40/90 shooting club, but she is the most efficient player in the country and ranks second in the sport in assist-to-turnover ratio (3.49). In regard to Connecticut’s elite defense, a big part of that comes from guarding without fouling. UConn allows the second-fewest free-throw attempts per game in Division One, and it allows the fourth-lowest field goal percentage, so there are limited opportunities for opponents to score.

UConn potentially knocking off No. 1 UCLA and then another No. 1 seed, however, will all boil down to Bueckers. That elite assist-to-turnover ratio hasn’t reared its head this deep in the tournament. Across her four previous games at this phase of March Madness (three Final Four games and one national title game), Bueckers has nearly the same number of turnovers (13) as she has assists (14) as UConn has gone 1-3 in those contests.