WBB Final Four Set -- TUESDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

All Chalk in Phoenix

South Carolina and Texas took care of business last night to close out the 2026 Regional Round and move to the Final Four in Phoenix. They joined UConn and UCLA, who did the same on Sunday night. That makes a clean sweep for 1-seeds in the tournament. However, for all of the talk about a lack of parity in women's college basketball, that argument is getting long in the tooth at this point. Does the cream still rise to the top? More often than not, yes. That said, this season marks the first final four made up of all 1-seeds since 2018, and it's just the second in a decade. 

That 2018 Final Four also included Louisville, and it saw both games go to overtime. Louisville came out on the wrong end of their matchup against Mississippi State, but there's no need to relitigate that whole thing. State would go on to lose to Notre Dame in the final, after the Irish defeated UConn in the Final Four. 

We'll see if the final four matchups are as close as that 2018 season, but the elite eight matchups certainly were not. Duke held their own the best, losing by the smallest margin, but their defeat at the hands of UCLA was still by 12 points. UConn won their third straight game of this tournament against ACC opponents, dismantling Notre Dame by 18. South Carolina made light work of TCU, winning by 26, but the jewel of the elite eight came in Louisville's region. 

At the same time as the Cards were completely unraveling against Michigan on Saturday, Kentucky was doing largely the same against Texas. Like on the men's side, Louisville and Kentucky women were bounced from the tournament on the same day. Texas beat UK by 22, while Louisville lost to Michigan by 19. All that did for the Wolverines was set them up to get absolutely trounced. The Longhorns made their second-straight final four appearance by dominating Michigan 77-41. Yeesh. 

The men's tournament will get the Saturday/Monday timeslots, so Texas and South Carolina draw the short straws by playing on just three-and-a-half days' rest with travel to Phoenix. The women's games will be played on Friday and the championship game will be Sunday, with a time still to be announced. This is the same final four as last season, but the matchups are different. UConn and South Carolina will play a rematch of the 2025 National Championship game, which saw the Huskies thump the Gamecocks 82-59. That game will start at 7:00PM on Friday. Scheduled for 9:30 (but actually tipping off 20 minutes after the horn of the first game if it runs long), the second game will feature UCLA and Texas. UCLA is seeking their first championship game appearance of the modern era, after last season was their first Final Four of the era. Texas is looking to make their first appearance in the championship game since winning it all in 1986. The Longhorns lost in the final four in 1987, 2003, and 2025. 

Louisville will look to next season to reignite their hunt for their first national championship. 

Until next time, Go Cards!

Case