They are the cream of the crop in U.S. women’s college basketball – familiar teams and coaches on the biggest stage in the sport.
After an NCAA tournament with more upsets than usual, four perennial powerhouses have advanced to the national semifinals this weekend in Minneapolis.
Three teams from last year’s Final Four – the defending champion Stanford Cardinal, UConn Huskies and South Carolina Gamecocks – return. They’re joined by the Louisville Cardinals, who fell one win short of the semifinal stage last season.
Here’s a capsule look at this year’s Final Four.
The Schedule
Friday
Semifinal: No. 1 Louisville (29-4) vs. No. 1 South Carolina (33-2), 7 p.m., ET
Semifinal: No. 1 Stanford (32-3) vs. No. 2 UConn (29-5), 9:30 p.m. ET
Sunday
Final, 8 p.m., ET
The Teams
South Carolina has been the top-ranked team in the AP poll all season. The Gamecocks lost by one to Stanford in last year’s semifinal. The Gamecocks’ first and only title came in 2017. South Carolina has the top defence in the country and has won its games by an average of 24 points this tournament, but its pedestrian offence (58th in the country) is why some feel there could be an upset.
While most pundits had South Carolina as the team to beat heading into the tournament, Stanford has gained traction. The California team has won 23 games in a row and is two victories away from its fourth title.
UConn is making an astounding 14th consecutive trip to the Final Four. The Huskies lead the country with 11 national championships. Riddled by injuries all season, the Huskies survived a second-round scare against Central Florida and then got to play in their home state for the third and fourth rounds, beating No. 1 North Carolina State in a double-overtime classic in Bridgeport to advance.
Louisville, despite being very consistent, might be the school with the most to prove. The Cardinals have never won the national title and they could be described, if there is such a thing, as an under-the-radar No. 1 seed. Louisville is in the Final Four for the first time since 2018.
The Coaches
South Carolina’s Dawn Staley was named the national coach of the year for the second time on Wednesday. She has guided the Gamecocks to the Final Four four times in the past seven years. A six-time WNBA all-star as a player, Staley has been at South Carolina since 2008.
Stanford’s Tara VanDerveer, with 1,157 career victories, is the winningest coach in NCAA women’s basketball history. The native of Melrose, Mass., started at Stanford in 1985, taking one year off (1995-96) to coach the national team.
UConn’s Geno Auriemma is just nine wins behind VanDerveer in the race for top spot. Like VanDerveer, he’s been at his school since 1985. The Italian-born Auriemma, who moved with his family to Pennsylvania when he was seven, has guided the Huskies to all 11 of their national titles, including four in a row from 2013-16.
Louisville’s Jeff Walz doesn’t have the same name recognition as his competitors, but he has won 78.9 per cent of his games since taking the reins of the program in 2007. His team has been runner-up at the Final Four twice.
The Star Players
South Carolina’s Aliyah Boston was named the national player of the year on Wednesday. A native of the Virgin Islands, Boston missed a tip-in at the buzzer of last year’s semifinal loss to Stanford. Since then, she has been nearly unstoppable. The six-foot-five junior forward averaged 16.8 points and 12.2 rebounds this season. She has three double-doubles in the tournament.
Stanford has a big 1-2 punch with point guard Haley Jones and forward Cameron Brink. Jones is coming off back-to-back double-doubles and was the top player at the Final Four last year. Brink averaged 13.4 points and 8.1 rebounds this season while shooting 56.1 per cent from the field.
UConn’s Paige Bueckers, the player of the year last season as a freshman (the first to accomplish that feat), underwent knee surgery in December after suffering a tibial plateau fracture. Bueckers returned in February and while she was slow to hit her stride, the point guard had 27 points and six rebounds in the dramatic win over South Carolina. Now, the Minnesota native gets to play very close to where she grew up.
Louisville’s Hailey Van Lith is the first Cardinals player in history to have four consecutive games with 20 or more points in the NCAA tournament. The point guard spent time training with Kobe Bryant at his academy during her high-school days.
The Canadians
For the second year in a row, all four teams in the Final Four have a Canadian – South Carolina’s Laeticia Amihere (Mississauga, Ont.), Stanford’s Alyssa Jerome (Toronto), Louisville’s Merissah Russell (Ottawa) and UConn’s Aaliyah Edwards (Kingston, Ont.).
Edwards will be a key player for UConn after fellow forward Dorka Juhasz suffered a season-ending wrist injury last week. The six-foot-three sophomore was solid in two games last weekend, averaging 9.5 points and eight rebounds.
Amihere had her most productive game of the tournament in the Elite 8. The six-foot-four junior forward had nine points and three rebounds in 16 minutes in an 80-50 win over Creighton.
Russell and Jerome, who was part of last year’s national championship team, have seen limited time during the tournament.
The Venue
Minneapolis hosts the event for the first time since 1995. The games will be played at Target Center -- home to the NBA’s Minnesota Timberwolves and WNBA’s Minnesota Lynx. Last year, all tournament games were held in San Antonio because of COVID-19. The Final Four returns to Texas for a stop in Dallas next year.
