Re-seeding the Women's Sweet 16: Is UConn or UCLA the best team left?

Because the NCAA Tournament doesn't re-seed, the Sweet 16 features a couple of interesting quirks this year. The lowest remaining seed, for example, is No. 10 Virginia, which means that No. 3 TCU has a theoretically easier matchup than the No. 1 seed in its region.

So, how would the tournament look if we reseeded the field? And I don't just mean re-seeding based on actual seeds — I mean if we also took the first weekend of the tournament into account, how would the team all stack up? From 16 to 1, here's how I'd rank the Sweet 16 teams in Women's March Madness.

16. Virginia

In a tournament where 15 of the 16 teams left were seeded sixth or better, the No. 10 seed Cavaliers obviously come in as the lowest-ranked team in a re-seed, but that shouldn't take anything away from what this program did in the first weekend.

Yes, beating Iowa probably says as much about Iowa's struggles as it says about what Virginia does well, but Kymora Johnson can cause problems for any defense. TCU might be the better team, but the Horned Frogs should be worried.

15. Minnesota

There was a big disparity for much of the season between where Minnesota was ranked in the AP poll and where they were in the NET. I tended to side with the NET, which valued them as a top-10 team in the country.

But the opening round showed that the voters might have had a point. It's not that the Golden Gophers are a bad team or anything, but the first-round win over Green Bay was way too close for comfort until a 30-9 fourth-quarter advantage, and the second-round win over Ole Miss was aided by some questionable whistles. This Sweet 16 game against UCLA could get ugly.

14. Kentucky

The Wildcats had some really inconsistent moments during the regular season, including a stretch lost five of six in late January and early February. But here they are: the Sweet 16 after a one-point win over West Virginia.

Do I trust this team? Not really. The Wildcats last game before the NCAA Tournament was a 23-point loss to South Carolina, and the defense has struggled at times, with Kentucky sitting just 108th in the nation in defensive rating. Still, beating the Mountaineers is a good win, and the Wildcats should at least be competitive against Texas.

13. Notre Dame

I really thought Notre Dame would struggle in the first round against a very good Fairfield team, to the point where I wrote about it being an upset pick. Instead, the Irish won that one by 19.

I then thought, "Well, there's no way they get past Ohio State." They won that one by 10. My big concern coming in was that as good as Hannah Hidalgo was, the supporting cast around her was unproven, and the defense has been fairly rough all season, with the team ranking 193rd in scoring defense.

But, it turns out, sometimes you really do just need to have a player like Hidalgo and to just let her go to work. She had 26 points, 13 rebounds and eight steals in the win over the Buckeyes.

12. Louisville

One concern about Louisville was that the team's success in the ACC this season might not be indicative of success in the NCAA Tournament because it was a down year for the conference. But we've now reached the Sweet 16 with five ACC teams still alive, so maybe that was a bad narrative.

The Cardinals are lucky to still be here, though, after beating Alabama by just a point in the second round. The offense has slowed down over the last month or so, and that's definitely a concern worth monitoring going forward. Still, this team is 14th overall in Division I in offensive rating, so don't let a few games scoring under 70 points sway your opinion too much.

11. North Carolina

The Tar Heels lost a close one to Louisville in the ACC Tournament, which solidified that the Cardinals would have the better seed in the NCAA Tournament. But after two rounds, I think UNC has an argument to be a bit higher than Louisville if we re-seeded teams.

That's largely because the team's second-round win was more impressive. While Louisville was sneaking past Alabama, North Carolina faced a Maryland team that's at least a tier above the Crimson Tide. It was a close game, but not as close as Louisville-Alabama, as the Tar Heels won it by eight points.

10. Oklahoma

It's so hard to rank the Sooner, because their style of play makes them susceptible to a loss if the team goes cold from the floor. While they rank fourth in scoring offense, the 67.9 points per game they allow ranks 274th in the nation.

We almost saww that bite them against Michigan State, as the Sooners scored just 77 points, their lowest total since Feb. 19. Lucky for them, they allowed just 71 to the Spartans and thus emerged victorious.

But this is definitely a concern. The team has scored 70 or fewer points four times this season, losing each of those games. The potential for a game like that gives me just enough pause to put Oklahoma at No. 10 in this reseeding, though you can make a strong argument they should be No. 9.

9. TCU

Is this too high for TCU? Maybe. But the Horned Frogs have one distinct advantage over the teams behind them: those teams don't have Olivia Miles.

Great players matter in March, and Miles sure mattered in the overtime win over Washington. While she held the ball a bit too long at the end of regulation and fired up a fairly bad look from 3-point land, she still finished with 18 points, 10 rebounds and eight assists.

Add in the size that Clara Silva and Marta Suárez bring to the floor, and you get a Horned Frogs team that can beat you in a variety of ways and that has one of the easiest paths to the Elite Eight with Iowa eliminated.

8. Duke

The ACC has a number of teams left, which is somewhat of a surprise. What shouldn't be a surprise is that the Blue Devils stand out as the best remaining team from the conference. Long gone are the concerns about Duke's slow start to the 2025-26 season.

Fueled by a defense that ranks 18th in the nation in defensive rating, the Blue Devils had a great opening weekend, including a dominant 69-46 win over Baylor. The team locked down the Bears, holding them to 30.2 percent shooting, including a 0-for-14 night from 3-point range.

7. Michigan

I remain concerned about Michigan's ability to close out close games, but the Wolverines didn't have to worry about that on the first weekend of the tournament, beating Holy Cross by 35 (not a surprise) and NC State by 29 (definitely a bit of a surprise).

Michigan has a extremely good sophomore class, one that I'd call the best sophomore class in the nation. but the team probably needs to add a bit more size this offseason to be a true championship contender. Still, Michigan is a tier above Duke, and not that far behind Vanderbilt.

6. Vanderbilt

There are some concerns about Vanderbilt's defensive numbers, as the team ranks 197th in scoring defense. Those concerns were quelled a bit in the second round against Illinois, though, as the Commodores held the Illini to just 57 points in one of the team's best defensive efforts all season.

But if Vanderbilt is going to win it all, it's going to be because the team has the nation's leading scorer, Mikayla Blakes. Blakes scored 30 in the opening-round win over High Point, then had 25 points in the second-round victory against Illinois. The last time Blakes was held under 20 points was Jan. 19 in a win over Michigan.

5. LSU

I really, really wanted to move LSU into one of the No. 1 seed spots because of how dominant its NCAA Tournament run has been, but that would be ignoring the regular season a bit too much. Still, we've learned over the past week that the Tigers are a real threat to win the championship.

The first-round win over Jacksonsville was predictably a blowout. If there's one thing Kim Mulkey is great at, it's destroying a low major team. But the second-round meeting with Texas Tech could have been competitive, right?

Nope. Texas Tech did nothing to slow down the Tigers and also couldn't generate any offense of its own, resulting in a 101-47 win for LSU. I know Tech was a bit shaky down the stretch this season, but that still goes down as arguably the most impressive win from any team in this field.

4. South Carolina

Shocker: The original No. 1 seed all remain at No. 1 in this reseeding. LSU made a run for one of the spots, but the top-four teams have just been too good all year long.

South Carolina comes in fourth here, but I'm really just splitting hairs here, as any of these four teams has a chance to cut down the nets. The Gamecocks made quick business of Southern in the first round, then beat USC by 40 in the second round. If not for an SEC Tournament loss to Texas, the Gamecocks would sit third in the reseeding.

3. Texas

The Longhorns enter the Sweet 16 on a 10-game win streak, and they remain the only team to hand UCLA a loss this season. In addition, Texas is fourth in the nation in net rating.

The complete lack of 3-point shooting is a concern, as the Horns rank last among all Division I teams in percentage of points scored from deep, but the team's physicality has made up for that so far. In a 100-58 win over Oregon in the second round, the Longhorns also went 8-for-12 from deep, so that part of their game could be developing a bit here at a very important time.

2. UCLA

One big debate leading up to March Madness was about who deserved the No. 1 overall seed. Was it UCLA, a one-loss team that went undefeated in Big Ten play, or was it UConn, which played an easier schedule but is undefeated and also won last year's title? The committee went with the Huskies, and I don't see the need to change that in this reseeding. The Bruins have a strong argument for being the best overall team left, but resume matters still, and the loss to Texas is something that UConn doesn't have.

UCLA played a closer second-round game than the other top teams, only — and I feel silly using the word "only" here — beating Oklahoma State by 19 after knocking off Cal Baptist by 19 in the first round. Don't let that game fool you, though — the Cowgirls were arguably better than their seed, and UCLA still hasn't lost a game since November.

1. UConn

No surprise here, right? The Huskies are the undefeated, defending national champions, and they deserve the No. 1 spot until someone dethrones them.

Sure, you can argue that playing in the Big East is a huge reason why this team is undefeated, but you don't just luck into an average margin of victory of 41.9 in conference games, the team's biggest average margin since returning to the Big East.

Sarah Strong and Azzi Fudd form arguably the best one-two punch in women's college basketball, and the Huskies are coming off of a 53-point win over Syracuse. They've won eight games in a row by at least 30 points.

More women's college basketball news and analysis: