Today, we will finish our first-round NCAA Tournament previews with a look at the second day of matchups and potential upsets in women’s March Madness.

A reminder: Our statistical model Slingshot, developed with help from the Furman University Mathematics Department, begins by estimating the strength of all Division I teams according to their scoring margin per 100 possessions and their strength of schedule. We then adjust those basic power ratings for how strongly teams carry traits associated with successful tournament teams of the past. For underdogs, these characteristics generally include tactics that widen the variability of a team’s play, such as shooting lots of 3-pointers and working to force turnovers. For favorites, it’s just the opposite: Higher seeds cruise to wins when they cut risks and avoid chaos. Then we estimate matchup results. We still don’t have the same depth of historical data for women’s basketball as we do for the men’s side, but we’re getting there.

Now, on to Saturday’s games!

More Bracket Breakers: Upset projections for Friday games

Odds are from BetMGM. For more Underdogs, listen to Peter and Jordan’s podcast. For all our March Madness coverage, check out our content hub. 

No. 6 Syracuse Orange vs. No. 11 Arizona Wildcats

Upset…

First-round (and even first-weekend) upsets in the women’s NCAA Tournament are rare, but that doesn’t mean we won’t see thrillers from Day 1.

Since the women’s tournament expanded to 64 games in 1994, only one No. 16 seed has brought down a No. 1 seed: Harvard over Stanford in 1998. A No. 15 seed or No. 14 seed has never won a tournament game. But the 12-5 matchup remains spicy with 26 upsets through the years. Some teams (Florida Gulf Coast and Belmont) have become particularly adept at these.

The first weekend will also bring us interesting style and personnel matchups. Who will move on? Who’s March Madness dreams will end quickly?

Our experts pick the most fascinating first-round games to watch:

(All times listed are Eastern)

11:30 a.m. Friday, ESPN2

Grace Raynor:  The Spartans’ 22 wins are their most since the 2015-16 season, and they’ve hung right in with some of the best teams in the Big Ten this year, losing on the road to Iowa by just 3 points and Ohio State by 5. North Carolina, meanwhile, gave South Carolina one of its tougher games earlier in the season when the Gamecocks won by just 7 points in Chapel…

Over the last month, The Athletic connected with more than 35 head coaches across women’s basketball to get their candid opinions on an array of topics from the changing tides in the sport to the best coaches in the game to the greatest women’s college basketball player of all time. These coaches, who hail from power conferences and high mid-majors, were granted anonymity so they could speak openly without fear of retribution from their own programs or the NCAA. Throughout the week, we’re sharing coaches’ thoughts on the most pressing issues in their sport.

Head coaches’ jobs are all-encompassing in college basketball. They have to recruit, and in the age of the portal, re-recruit. They have to scour opposing rosters to find players who would be suitable transfers. They work with athletic departments for appropriate facilities and accommodations. There’s an entire ecosystem under their purview.

Of course, the most important part of their role is putting together the product that shows up on the court. That job is multi-faceted in and of itself. Beyond spearheading player development, coaches design the offensive schemes, the defensive game plans and make adjustments when necessary. This is the part that’s easiest for their peers to evaluate because the results…

Selection Sunday has come and gone, and if your favorite team landed in the Albany 2 Region, my sincerest apologies.

At The Athletic, we have you covered with all the big-picture details of the bracket, including the paths to the Final Four for last year’s national finalists as well as South Carolina, who enters as this year’s favorite. But the fun of filling out a bracket (you can print ours here) isn’t just figuring out the Final Four teams; it’s knowing which 11th-seeded team will upset a power conference program and which underdog can silence a hosting team’s home crowd.

You can’t have the Big Dance without Cinderella, and thankfully, there are several candidates in this year’s field waiting to try on that glass slipper to see if it fits. Here’s a look at some double-digit seeds who are threats to spring early-round upsets.

No. 11 Texas A&M

I just can’t quit Texas A&M. The Aggies featured in my preseason top 25 — a prediction that did not age well as they lost five of their final six SEC games and failed to enter the rankings for the entirety of the regular season. However, when Texas A&M is at its peak, it can contend with talented opposition. The Aggies boast double-digit wins over Kansas, Ole Miss and Tennessee, and they stayed within 11 points of South…

We last released power rankings five weeks before the end of the NCAA Tournament. Despite this committee of one’s best efforts to gauge how well teams across the country were playing, four teams that made the Sweet 16 (Ole Miss, Louisville, Tennessee and Miami) didn’t make the list of 25. The eventual champion was slotted in seventh, and their opponent came in at sixth.

These rankings aren’t intended to be a prediction of what will transpire, but rather an assessment of how teams are performing at any given moment. Even accounting for some missteps in the process, namely my underrating the SEC for most of the season, it’s striking to see how much changed over the course of one month.

All that is to say that this pre-preseason iteration of the power rankings shouldn’t be considered a gambling guide for the 2024 NCAA Tournament. Nevertheless, there’s no time like the present to start considering what the 2023-24 season could look like. Keep in mind that WNBA Draft opt-outs — players have until midnight (ET) Wednesday to withdraw — and transfer portal decisions can and will have a dramatic impact on these rosters, but we’ll address those changes at a later date in the offseason.

• The top spot goes to the 2023 champion Tigers, a team that improved steadily…

They did it! Florida Gulf Coast, our statistical model’s favorite underdog in the Women’s NCAA Tournament, pulled off a 12 vs. 5 upset on Saturday, knocking off Washington State, 74-63. The Eagles will now advance to the Round of 32 for the second straight year.

The details are as impressive as the results: Early on, FGCU could not rely on its signature strength, making just one of its first 10 3-point attempts. But they kept shooting smart: Outside the lane, the Eagles launched just a couple of 2-point attempts as they focused on getting close to the basket. And they dominated the Cougars inside, shooting 25-40 (62.5%) on two-point FGAs. They also had seven steals and eventually made up ground from long range, making 35.7% of their bombs (5-14) for the game.

The women’s tournament keeps reminding us that its games are getting more competitive, but a few powerhouses still dominate its field. On the one hand, No. 12 Toledo (No. 7 on our list of the best potential underdogs) beat Iowa State on Saturday. And three teams came back from deficits of at least 16 points to win. Conversely, Tennessee won by 45, UConn by 43, Duke by 40, Texas by 39. Scrape by a favorite in the first round, and you get to meet one of these giants—or South Carolina!—in the second.

No. 4 Villanova…

Filling out the women’s NCAA Tournament bracket is fun, sure. But with betting lines included, the stakes are raised and it’s a whole other ballgame — even if you’re sure of the winner, you can still pick against the spread. Last year, I had a hard time finding lines for the women’s tournament. This year, the information was much more available. I took all info into account — stats, schedules, personnel matchups, strengths and weaknesses — as I began the arduous task of analyzing each pick and selecting game winners. (And I reminded myself, more than once, not to overthink it.)

If you’re unfamiliar with betting numbers, the general idea is you subtract whatever the number is from the score, and that should make it even. So “South Florida -1.5” means the Hurricanes should win by two against Marquette. The .5 allows you to pick a side, so there are no ties. In short, the team with the “-” number next to it is giving the other team that much of a lead in this figurative world. If “PK” is listed, it means the teams are rated even strength and it’s a straight win or loss pick.

My picks for the first round are based against the spread, not straight-up winners. Check back, as I’ll have subsequent picks for every round of the tournament.

Friday

No. 9…

The women’s NCAA Tournament is finally here, and across the country some of the sport’s biggest stars will get the opportunity to showcase their talent on the biggest possible stage. But before the tournament fully gets underway, our women’s college basketball reporters at The Athletic wanted to see who could put together the best possible March Madness fantasy team. Each team consisted of six players, a coach and a mascot. Prior to the draft we laid out the following rules:

• Each player, coach or mascot needed to be part of this year’s 68-team field. (Sorry, Aneesah Morrow.)

• Each team needed to have representation from at least one mid-major school.

• Schools could not be reused, meaning once a player was picked all other members of that university (and very importantly, that university’s mascot) were wiped from the draft pool.

We utilized a snake draft, and Ben Pickman was awarded the first pick by winning our draft lottery (being closest to a random number selected by our editor, Shannon Ryan.) Sabreena Merchant picked second, followed by Chantel Jennings.

Comment below or respond to our Twitter poll to let us know who you think won the draft.

Round 1

Pick No. 1

Ben: Caitlin Clark, Iowa

The Athletic’s Player of the Year and the best offensive player in college…

Over the last month, The Athletic has spoken with more than 30 women’s college basketball coaches about an array of topics from name, image and likeness to athletic directors to sleeping giants in the sport. These coaches, who hail from power conferences and high mid-majors, were granted anonymity to allow them to speak openly without fear of retribution from their own programs or the NCAA. Throughout the week, we’re sharing coaches’ thoughts on the most pressing issues in their sport. Though not every response to each question is included, answers represent all opinions expressed.

Coaches always have an eye on their peers. There’s a bond among individuals in this line of work, and it helps to have camaraderie among people who have chosen a similar path. But oftentimes, coaches are scouting for best practices; they’re looking to lift plays and sets from other teams that might work for their own. In the Big Ten regular-season finale, Iowa coach Lisa Bluder noted to reporters she took a play out of Las Vegas Aces head coach Becky Hammon’s book to run on the Hawkeyes’ last possession, which ended in a Caitlin Clark game winner. The best coaches openly acknowledge they’re thieves of whatever works best on the court, whether that comes from high school, college or…

Welcome to our post-Selection Sunday installment of Getting Technical, a series where our writers let you in on their conversations and messages to one another. Following ESPN’s reveal of the 2023 women’s NCAA Tournament bracket Chantel Jennings, Sabreena Merchant and Ben Pickman chatted about their knee-jerk reactions to the matchups and their predictions for the month ahead.

Sabreena: It’s the most wonderful time of the year. We have a field of 68, and every team is just three good weeks away from basketball immortality. Coming off a selection show where 75 percent of teams did the Griddy and Kim Mulkey was seen wearing jeans, we’re ready to break down what to expect from Seattle to Greenville, and everything in between.

Chantel: OK, first things first — with that field of 68 … South Carolina or the field?

Sabreena: Well, if Columbia had gotten a bid …

Chantel: I was really rooting for the Ivy to get two teams in this year. Dammit, committee. Give some credit to the nerds.

Ben: Seven NET 100 wins, six of them coming on the road, and a strong nonconference schedule. Are we really sure the right New York City-based school got in with St. John’s? But alas.

To Chantel’s question about S.C. or the field, there’s two ways I’ve been trying to think about that…