Everyone loves a good upset, other than the fans of the team being upset and the people who picked that team to advance deeper in the NCAA Tournament.
While first round upsets tend to be more rare in the women's tournament than the men's tournament, they still happen. Last year, we weirdly one got one first-round upset (No. 11 Middle Tennessee over No. 6 Louisville), but 2023 saw seven first-round upsets. They do happen! And 2025 feels more likely to look like 2023 than like 2024.
Let's look at four teams that should be worried about an upset in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.
Baylor
I've spent all year hyping up this Baylor team. Despite being picked to finish third in the Big 12 in the conference's preseason poll, it really felt like there was very little attention paid to the Bears all year, despite the fact that the team was one win away from both the regular season and Big 12 Tournament championships.
That's why I feel like a traitor for suggesting that I hate the matchup the committee gave Baylor in the first round. As a No. 4 seed, the Bears get to host the first weekend in Waco, but have to face a very intriguing Grand Canyon team in the first round.
GCU — coached by Molly Miller, whose name has been thrown about for a number of power conference head coaching jobs already this year — went 30-2 against Division I opponents, only losing to Middle Tennessee and Oregon back in November. The team beat both Arizona and Arizona State and also soundly defeated NCAA Tournament team Liberty by 29 points.
Baylor's defense should be able to slow down the Lopes, but Trinity San Antonio has come up big in big spots, like scoring 26 in the win over Arizona. She'll have to avoid turning the ball over — in the WAC title game, San Antonio had 12 turnovers — but if GCU is locked in, this could be a game.
Michigan State
Something about Michigan State just didn't stand out to me this season. Obviously, the 21-9 Spartans are a good basketball team, but they also rank outside the top 40 in both offensive and defensive rating. The team is 13th in points per game, but so much of that is because it pushes the pace, ranking 13th in possessions per 40 minutes. The right team could really exploit this defense.
And that's why the Spartans should be terrified of their first round opponent, Harvard. The Crimson aren't an elite offensive team, but they do have an elite offensive player, Harmoni Turner. Turner averaged 22.5 points per game this season and came up especially big when it mattered most, scoring 68 points in the two-game Ivy League Tournament.
Couple that with Harvard's defense sitting fourth in the nation in defensive rating and you have the makings of a potential upset here. It's all going to come down to whether or not the Spartans have an answer for Turner.
Oklahoma State
Every year, I have a bone to pick with the selection committee over one team or another's seeding. There's always a really good mid-major team that gets stuck as a double-digit seed even though they're better than a number of teams seeded ahead of them.
This year's team is South Dakota State. The Jackrabbits landed as the No. 10 seed in the Spokane regional and take on No. 7 seed Oklahoma State in the first round.
Her Hoop Stats gives the Jackrabbits a 40.5 percent chance to win this game, with a projected margin of victory of 2.9. The math shows that this is a close one.
Part of why it will be close is that the Jackrabbits have a very efficient offense. The team likes to slow the pace down and find the right shot, which is how they rank 30th in scoring but 11th in points per 100 possesions. As a team, South Dakota State shoots 48.4 percent from the floor, the sixth-best mark in Division I, and 37.3 percent from behind the 3-point line, which ranks 10th.
This game likely comes down to which team can play its brand of basketball. If the Cowgirls are able to get out and run and push the pace, it could get the Jackrabbits out of rhythm, but if Oklahoma State is missing those shots and lets the Jackrabbits play methodically when they've got the ball, then we might have an upset brewing.
Tennessee
Tennessee had some major highs this season like the team's big win over UConn, but things fell apart for the Lady Vols down the stretch. The team lost three of its final four games and while losses to Kentucky and Vanderbilt aren't awful, a loss to Georgia sure was. (Plus, the Kentucky loss was by 24 points, so actually it probably does count as awful, if we want to get technical.)
Those struggles knocked Tennessee out of hosting position in the NCAA Tournament, with the team landing a No. 5 seed and having to head off to Columbus for the first round.
But will Tennessee even make it to the second round to face Ohio State? South Florida stands in its way, and the Bulls aren't going to just roll over.
USF has basically been the class of the American since UConn left, winning the conference for the first three seasons after the Huskies left before struggling last year and missing the NCAA Tournament. But the Bulls got back on the right track this season, beating Rice in the AAC title game to advance to March Madness.
The Bulls struggled against some of the top teams they played in non-conference, losing in blowout fashio against UConn and TCU. Only losing by 16 to South Carolina is a little impressive, but the highlight of the year and the reason I think this team can beat Tennessee is that it beat Duke, winning by nine points when the teams met in December. USF probably can't beat one of the top teams in this tournament, but a No. 5 seed that's been struggling lately? That it can do.