UCLA Women’s Basketball was announced as a No. 1 seed for the NCAA tournament on March 16, following its Big Ten championship win.
The selection highlights UCLA’s strong season performance and continued presence among the top teams in collegiate women’s basketball. The Bruins, with a record of 31-1, will host Oklahoma State, Princeton, and Cal Baptist at Pauley Pavilion this coming weekend.
According to the announcement, Oklahoma State and Princeton will play at 4:30 p.m. Pacific Time on Saturday, March 21, with their game broadcast on ESPN2. UCLA will face Cal Baptist at approximately 7 p.m., with coverage on ESPN. Tickets for these games go on sale Monday at 8 a.m. Pacific Time.
This marks UCLA’s ninth NCAA tournament appearance in the last ten seasons, excluding the canceled event in 2020. Over the past three years, the team has reached two Sweet Sixteen rounds and made its first-ever Final Four appearance after defeating LSU in last year’s Elite Eight.
The bracket for this year’s tournament includes LSU as the No. 2 seed, Duke as No. 3, and Minnesota rounding out the top four seeds alongside UCLA. This is also UCLA’s tenth tournament under head coach Cori Close and its twenty-first overall appearance.
UCLA enters postseason play undefeated in conference games (18-0) and became only the fourth program in Big Ten history to achieve an undefeated conference season. The Bruins secured an automatic qualifier by winning their second consecutive Big Ten tournament title in Indianapolis, including a decisive victory over Iowa (96-45), which set a new record for margin of victory against an Associated Press top ten-ranked team.
