Two-time national champion Baylor is the overall No. 1 seed in the NCAA women’s basketball tournament.
Louisville, which beat UConn during the regular season, is the top seed in the Albany bracket, ahead of the 11-time champion Huskies.
Also in the Albany region is Tennessee, which kept alive its streak of being in every NCAA tournament since the event began in 1982. The Lady Vols are No. 11, their lowest seed in tournament history, and will open play against No. 6 UCLA in a first-round game hosted by Maryland, which is the third seed in the region .
Tennessee was in some danger of missing the field after a season in which the Lady Vols had a six-game losing streak and fell to the SEC’s worst team, Vanderbilt, at home. But Tennessee did enough to earn an at-large bid, one of seven SEC teams in the field.
UConn, 31-2, opens against 15th-seeded Towson. The Huskies were the American Athletic Conference regular-season and tournament champion, and its only losses this season were at Baylor and at Louisville, both No. 1 seeds. The Huskies’ only losses the previous two seasons came in overtime at the Women’s Final Four semifinals, after UConn had won four consecutive NCAA titles from 2013-16.
UConn is on a streak of 11 consecutive appearances in the Final Four.
Louisville faces Robert Morris in the opening round. Maryland will meet Radford and fourth-seeded Oregon State, which made its Final Four debut in 2016, faces Boise State.
Earlier Monday, the women’s bracket was mistakenly posted early on ESPNU.
“In working with the NCAA to prepare for tonight’s Women’s Selection Special we received the bracket, similar to years past,” ESPN said in a statement. “In the midst of our preparation, the bracket was mistakenly posted on ESPNU. We deeply regret the error and extend our apology to the NCAA and the women’s basketball community. We will conduct a thorough review of our process to ensure it doesn’t happen in the future. We will now broadcast the full bracket at 5 p.m. ET on ESPN2, and the regularly-scheduled show on ESPN at 7 p.m.”
The NCAA released the following statement Monday:
“An unfortunate technical error by ESPN revealed the 2019 NCAA Division I Women’s Basketball Championship bracket earlier today. We regret the network’s mistake and are working with our partners at ESPN to prevent similar errors in future years. We look forward to collaborating with ESPN to bring fans exciting women’s basketball tournament coverage throughout the remainder of the championship.”
Source: Read Full Article