This year’s Women’s Basketball Final Four accomplishes rare feat originally appeared on The Sporting News. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
Ahead of the Women’s Final Four on Friday, the four 1 seeds in South Carolina, UConn, Texas, and UCLA have all etched their names in history. This marks just the fifth time that all four 1-seeded teams in the women’s tournament have reached the Final Four.
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The UConn women’s team has been a part of four of the five appearances made by all four top-seeded teams. The previous four years that this was accomplished came in 1989, 2012, 2015, and 2018.
This is also only the second time that the same four teams have made back-to-back Final Four appearances. UConn was a part of this accomplishment as well, the first time it came around in 1995 and 1996 when the Huskies, along with Tennessee, Stanford, and Georgia, all returned to the Final Four.
Talent gap between Final Four & rest of the country
This season, the Final Four teams in UConn, UCLA, Texas, and South Carolina have stood far ahead of the rest of the country in terms of their season performances.
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They own four of the top-5 largest point differentials on the season, with UConn leading the way at +37.7 points, South Carolina at +29.6, Texas at +29, and UCLA at a +27.9 advantage. They are also four of the top six teams in field goal percentage advantage as well.
Throughout the tournament, each of them won their games by a minimum of 12 points, with all of them having at least one win of 40+ points within the first two rounds.
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In the Elite 8 against mostly top-5 seeded teams, UConn defeated #6 Notre Dame by 18 points, South Carolina put away #3 TCU by 26 points, UCLA over #3 Duke by 12 points, and Texas with the largest win of 36 points over #2 Michigan.
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