Women's NCAA Tournament winners, losers: Elite Eight field is set
After the completion of Saturday's games, the field for the Elite Eight in the women's NCAA Tournament is set.
With the games came winners and losers, and here are three of each.
In a 71-62 win against Notre Dame, the starting five for the Horned Frogs combined for all 71 of the team's points.
Hailey Van Lith scored 26 of those 71, and Sedona Prince also got to the 20-point mark with 21 points. TCU used just two bench players (Aaliyah Roberson and Taylor Bigby) and the two played just five and nine minutes, respectively.
The absence of star point guard JuJu Watkins loomed large for the Trojans on Saturday, but they were able to pull through without her with a 67-61 win over Kansas State.
Kennedy Smith stepped up in a big way, scoring 19 points, well above her season average of 9.2 points per game. Avery Howell did the same, scoring 18, well above her season average of 7.1 points per game.
Bueckers is the best player remaining in the tournament and she showed that in an 82-59 win over Oklahoma.
Bueckers scored a career-high 40 points and helped the Huskies rally from a four-point halftime deficit and easily win the game and advance to the Elite Eight.
PAIGE BUECKERS CAREER-HIGH IN THE SWEET 16 pic.twitter.com/FxrvSJjM2R
— ESPN (@espn) March 29, 2025
As mentioned above, the Sooners had a four-point lead over UConn at halftime before falling apart in the second half.
Oklahoma was outscored 50-23 in the second half and the final score does not indicate the fight the Sooners were giving the Huskies in the first half.
In Notre Dame's biggest game of the season, Hidalgo's worst game of the season came at an unfortunate time.
She shot just 3-of-19 (0-of-3 3PT) from the field in a 71-62 loss to TCU. It was just the third time in the last 16 games that she failed to knock down a three-pointer during a game.
Tennessee went into Saturday averaging 87.5 points per game, good for first in all of women's college basketball.
The Volunteers were held to just 59 points in their loss to Texas, their second-lowest point total of the season. It was the worst time for one of their worst games of the year.