Conference tournaments are well underway. The bubble is popping for some teams, while others are playing themselves into higher seedings as Selection Sunday looms.
On Saturday, the ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, SEC and a slew of midmajors are battling in their conference tournament semifinals. The Big East is competing in the quarterfinals.
Our women’s basketball experts at The Athletic are here with their takeaways as teams fight for a conference title.
NC State victory clarifies ACC seeding
A day after North Carolina avenged a last-second regular-season loss to Florida State, NC State did the same against those very Tar Heels. The Wolfpack comfortably handled their in-state rivals in a 66-55 victory to advance to Sunday’s ACC title game for the second consecutive season. After falling behind 5-0, the Wolfpack reeled off a 21-0 run to take control. The young freshman bigs shined for NC State, shoring up one of its biggest weaknesses in the postseason; Tilda Trygger and Lorena Awou combined for 18 points and limited North Carolina center Maria Gakdeng to six shot attempts.
With the victory, the Wolfpack likely locked up a No. 2 seed in the NCAA Tournament, a spot they occupied in each of the two Top 16 seeding reveals. Barring some unexpected results in the Big Ten and SEC tournaments, NC State – which entered the game 16th in NET rating – doesn’t have the juice to rise to the top line regardless of what happens Sunday, but its presence in the conference tournament could be beneficial for its potential opponent.
Notre Dame, which plays Duke in Saturday’s second ACC semifinal, has been the final No. 1 seed in both seeding reveals, but it lost to Florida State in the final week of the regular season. Beating the Wolfpack would help the Irish stay on the top line, though UConn and South Carolina also will be in the mix.
North Carolina had been the 10th overall seed in the latest Top 16 reveal. Since then, the Tar Heels lost to Duke (on the road) and Virginia, which won’t be a tournament team. UNC could have jumped to a No. 3 seed with a continued run in the conference tournament, but it will remain a hosting team after beating Boston College and Florida State to reach the semifinals. The ACC is now poised to have four hosting sites: the three North Carolina teams and Notre Dame.
— Sabreena Merchant
Does UConn’s cool 3-point shooting spell trouble?
If there’s one particular bellwether that could indicate how deep UConn can make a run this March (and maybe April), it’s 3-point shooting. In the Huskies’ losses (to Notre Dame, USC and Tennessee), they struggled from long range; those three games account for three of their seven worst 3-point shooting performances in the regular season. Though they shot 38 percent overall this season — the fifth-best among Division I teams — in each of those losses, they shot 26 percent or worse on 3s.
The point becomes even clearer when contrasting those games to their explosive performance over South Carolina in February, when the Huskies looked every part a national title contender by sinking 46 percent of their 3-point attempts.
UConn’s 3-point shooting has been consistently strong lately, including in its win against the Gamecocks, which seems like a good sign heading into the postseason. Of their nine games since the start of February, the Huskies have sunk at least 40 percent of their 3s in six games.
But that trend took a downward spiral on Saturday as the Huskies began their Big East tournament journey. They had their worst 3-point shooting performance of the season, going 2 of 19 (11 percent).
Even though the 3-point line wasn’t decisive in a 71-40 win over St. John’s, UConn can’t feel great about starting tournament play with that kind of performance. Its four best long-range shooters — Paige Bueckers, Azzi Fudd, Ashlynn Shade and Sarah Strong, who all shot at least 37 percent from beyond the arc this season — combined for just two makes in 14 attempts.
But with a win, UConn will have a chance to right the ship in the semifinals against the winner of Villanova-Marquette.
One bright mark for the Huskies? Caroline Ducharme, the former No. 5 recruit in the 2021 class who had played in just three games this season after suffering multiple neck and back injuries, scored her first points of this season in late-game play.
— Chantel Jennings
Caroline Ducharme scores her first points of the season! pic.twitter.com/ECKr4mFNp7
— UConn Women’s Basketball (@UConnWBB) March 8, 2025
A bubble bursts?
Before we even got to Championship Sunday, the bubble already burst for at least one team in women’s college hoops.
Richmond went 17-1 through Atlantic 10 play and won the conference regular-season title outright, but the Spiders dropped a stunner in the semifinals to No. 4 seed St. Joseph’s. Junior Laura Ziegler hit a game-winning jumper as time expired to lift the Hawks to a 50-49 win over the expected A-10 champs.
The Spiders were considered a lock for the NCAA Tournament, so their loss has huge implications for bubble teams (and will probably leave the Spiders feeling a little anxious on Selection Sunday, too).
LAURA ZIEGLER WINS IT AT THE BUZZER!
@SJUHawks_WBB is going to the @A10WBB Championship! pic.twitter.com/Q92hgEVmUh— CBS Sports College Basketball 🏀 (@CBSSportsCBB) March 8, 2025
The Spiders had been in both Sabreena Merchant’s power rankings and in my AP Top-25 ballot over the last few weeks. The A-10 had been considered a single-bid league, but now that conference will likely steal a second bid — the first for whichever team wins the conference tournament championship, and the second for Richmond.
So, who’s biting their nails on the bubble now?
In Mark Schindler’s most recent Bubble Watch, he wrote that Virginia Tech (18-12) was his last team in, so the Hokies — in their first season under coach Megan Duffy — might not be dancing, especially after their first-round exit in the ACC tournament with a loss to Georgia Tech. Out of the Big Ten, Washington (19-13) picked up a nice first-round win over Minnesota in the Big Ten tournament but fell to a hot Michigan squad in the quarterfinals. Colorado (20-12) had been sitting on the bubble with Arizona but the Buffaloes beat the Wildcats in the first round of the Big 12 tournament before falling to regular-season champs TCU in the quarterfinals. That win should move them into slightly safer territory, but these mid-major upsets can sometimes have major domino effects for other teams, including power conference squads.
— Chantel Jennings
(Photo of Washington’s Elle Ladine: Michael Hickey/Getty Images)
