Gene Clemons uncovers the futures odds and best bets going into the 2025 NCAA Women's Basketball Tournament, including Paige Bueckers and UConn.

For the past two seasons, the NCAA Women’s Tournament has been the crown jewel of March Madness, usurping a title that was squarely held by the men's tournament since its inception. 

While many thought that losing players like Iowa guard Caitlin Clark and LSU forward Angel Reese would restore order and reduce the women’s game back to a subplot of March, the regular-season and conference-tournament competition have shown that parity in the women’s game is at an all-time high. In a good way!

Download printable men's and women's brackets here

There are more teams than ever who have a legitimate opportunity to cut down the nets with the confetti falling around them. That means picking teams to win it all – or to simply make it to the Final Four – is more difficult than ever. Let’s take a look at some teams you should have penciled in, some who have a decent chance to upset the establishment, and one Cinderella that could slide into the party. 

NCAA Tournament Favorites: Book Your Tickets

South Carolina +275

A finals game without Dawn Staley and her South Carolina Gamecocks would be really strange. Especially when you consider they have been in the Final Four the last four seasons and they've won the championship two times. They have an extremely deep squad filled with every type of basketball player you could name. They have three different types of interior players and on the perimeter. They have shooters, slashers, ball handlers and players who will lock you up. They are so good that they graduated a WNBA lottery player and never even blinked. They have veteran leaders, freshman phenoms and everything in between. Make no mistake, the Gamecocks will not beat themselves in the tournament. The only way they lose is if a team is able to pry the championship out of their cold dead fingers (metaphorically, of course). Can they be beat? Yes. Is it likely? No. The gift is that you are still getting plus money. The surprise would be if they are not in the championship game. 

UConn +300

The hunger has been restored in Storrs, but it does not mean that the Huskies will glide through to a championship. What we do know is that there are only three teams that know what it is like to beat South Carolina this season, one of those teams is the Huskies. Paige Bueckers aka “Paige McBuckets” is on a mission to end the eight-year championship drought for a program that won four consecutive titles before this dry spell. The team is mostly healthy, something that has really derailed previous seasons including a couple of Bueckers’s seasons. The most impressive thing about their win over South Carolina this season was how dominant it was. They waxed the defending champs like they have been handling most of their opponents this season. They have only tasted defeat three times this season, and they will be an extremely tough out for anyone they face. Geno Auriemma is not ready to be an afterthought in championship discussions, and his team will bring out all the firepower to secure another chip. 

Tournament Invite Stealers

LSU +6000

The Bayou Bengals are back and led by the ultra-talented, multi-faceted junior guard Flau'Jae Johnson along with senior forward Aneesa Morrow and sophomore guard Mikaylah Williams. The three combine for over 54 points and almost 23 rebounds per game. They have a long and athletic team. Defensively they have the ability to switch all over the court. They can run or play in the half court and they have enough talent on the team that remembers what it was like to hoist the trophy. Coach Kim Mulkey knows how to get the best out of her teams come tournament time and when you look at this squad's construction, they are built to last. They have a 17-1 home record, so if they get a home pod they are likely to come out unscathed. They are also 5-1 in neutral-site games. So they can handle venues when they get past Round 1 of the tournament. 

Duke +6000

It took Duke head coach Kara Lawson time but she is finally here. She has been recognized as one of the brightest minds in the game and it felt like it would only be a matter of time before she had the Blue Devils in a position to strike. In her fifth season at the helm, she has a team with the ability to beat multiple top-tier teams in a short amount of time. They proved that over an 11-day stretch when they beat eighth-ranked North Carolina and 25th-ranked Florida State to finish the regular season. Then they beat Louisville, sixth-ranked Notre Dame and the top seed in the ACC tournament NC State in three straight days. They do it with unselfish team play, balanced scoring across six players and suffocating defense. They are going to be a difficult team to beat in a rock fight because they can take a hit and keep coming. The question for opponents will be can they weather the hits. 

TCU +8000

TCU is 31-3 and nobody is really talking about the Horned Frogs in the national championship discussion. That is pretty wild for a squad ranked sixth in the country, but it shows how much people believe in other teams in this tournament. They have only ever looked bad one time this season and that was a 32-point loss to South Carolina. Sometimes those games snowball and get out of hand (see South Carolina vs. UConn). You can be sure the Horned Frogs have learned from that loss and are moving differently because of it. This is a team chock-full of experience. They have eight seniors and four juniors suiting up, led by the Big 12 Player of the Year Hailey Van Lith, who leads the team in points, assists, and steals. They are also paced by their unanimous first-team All-Big 12 big Sedona Prince, who is second in points and leads the squad in rebounds and assists. The reigning Big 12 champs seem to be content to let others have the headlines while they work their way to the championship. 

Glass Slipper Status

South Dakota State +50000

For as far as the women’s game has come, it is still far away from the parity that the men’s field enjoys in the NCAA tournament. So when looking for a Cinderella you don't need to look outside of the top 25. That is what makes the 24th-ranked Jackrabbits so intriguing. They have only tasted defeat three times this season and one of them was a close five-point loss to seventh-ranked Duke. They have a squad full of all-conference performers—especially on defense—so they should be able to keep offenses in check, but they also have the ability to score the ball at a good pace. They can speed the game up or take the air out of the basketball. They also have an inside/outside combination in Brooklyn and Paige Meyer. This squad got a taste of the tournament last season when they lost by 14 to Utah, the fifth-ranked team in the nation. They have enough veteran savvy to get by a higher seed.