Compared to the men’s bracket, the women’s NCAA tournament traditionally has held less chaos when it comes to upsets. Case in point, all four regions in the women’s tourney produced just one upset (No. 11 Middle Tennessee over No. 6 Louisville). Even all four of the No. 8 seeds topped all four of the No. 9s. Could that change in 2025? If this year’s underdogs prove feistier than usual, some of the biggest and most recognizable programs in the women’s game (including Caitlin Clark’s alma mater, Iowa) could be at risk of going home early.
Bracket Breakers uses metrics to forecast NCAA Tournament upsets, and this is the third year we’re applying our statistical tools to the women’s game as well as the men’s. This is a matter of basic fairness — it’s absurd how far behind and for how long the analytics of many women’s sports have lagged their male counterparts. But, it’s also a practical decision. Women’s basketball is rapidly gaining and dispersing talent, creating better teams around the country — and theoretically leading to greater parity and more upsets — while interest in the sport is rocketing. So over the coming weeks, we’ll be looking to see which teams can upend the usual suspects and bring surprise excitement to the big dance.
We analyze David and Goliath with our statistical model Slingshot, developed with the help of Furman math professors John Harris, Kevin Hutson and Liz Bouzarth. Slingshot creates power rankings of teams based on their margins of victory and schedule strength. Then it adjusts those ratings based on how closely each outfit resembles squads that have over- and underperformed in past tournaments. Historical play-by-play data for women’s hoops is still scarce enough that we can’t add all the bells and whistles to our spreadsheets that Slingshot incorporates for the men’s game. But we’re getting more of the data we need with each passing season. (For more details, check out this introduction to our work.)
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This year, there’s an unusually large crop of genuine national championship contenders, and an interesting bunch of lower-ranked teams that carry giant-killing traits. But the top programs are still extremely strong. Slingshot estimates there are 37 women’s teams — well more than half the bracket! — that are more than 30 points per 100 possessions better than D-1 average, vs. just 12 on the men’s side. That makes life hard for a would-be David. Making life even harder, several exciting mid-majors have run into very tough matchups in this tournament. The bottom half of the women’s bracket keeps simmering for sure, but may not be quite ready to blow.
We’ll delve deeper into those and other topics as we analyze matchups. For now, it’s time to begin with Slingshot’s 10 most likely first-round upsets:
10 Most Likely First-Round Upsets
No. 11 George Mason vs. No. 6 Florida State
Upset Chance: 26.6 percent
No. 13 Montana State vs. No. 4 Ohio State
Upset Chance: 25.2 percent
No. 11 Murray State No. 6 Iowa
Upset Chance: 23.6 percent
No. 11 Columbia* vs. No. 6 West Virginia
Upset Chance: 21.6 percent (*Requires Columbia to beat Washington in the play-in game.)
No. 11 Iowa State* vs. No. 6 Michigan
Upset Chance: 15.3 percent (*Requires Iowa State to beat Princeton in the play-in game.)
No. 13 Grand Canyon vs. No. 4 Baylor
Upset Chance: 14.4 percent
No. 13 Norfolk State. No. 4 Maryland
Upset Chance: 13.4 percent
No. 14 Florida Gulf Coast vs. No.3 Oklahoma
Upset Chance: 12.6 percent
No. 12 Fairfield vs. No. 5 Kansas State
Upset Chance: 11.2 percent
No. 11 Princeton* vs. No. 6 Michigan
Upset Chance: 9.9 percent (*Requires Princeton to beat Iowa State in the play-in game.)
(Illustration: Dan Goldfarb / The Athletic; G Fiume/Getty, Steve Conner/AP Photo)
