Of the 64 teams to compete in the 2023 Women’s NCAA Tournament, over half are considered high-majors. This includes programs from the typical “power five” conferences — the ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-12 and SEC — as well as the Big East, which had a highly competitive women’s basketball season prior to the national tournament.
Two rounds into the tournament, every single remaining team is a high-major. This isn’t entirely unexpected; power five schools are typically the ones competing for NCAA championships, and though conference realignment has changed the overall landscape of the NCAA throughout the years, one-off victories and Cinderella stories in the women’s NCAA Tournament are uncommon.
The Sweet Sixteen begins this Friday, March 24, and there are a lot of familiar programs still competing. There are, however, a handful of high-majors that didn’t make it that far, perhaps surprisingly. While we wait for the next round of NCAA Tournament games to tip-off, let’s check in on which high-majors have met expectations, which have exceeded expectations and which have already gone home.
Meeting expectations
