NCAA Women's Basketball Tournament 2025: Bracketology Update

Where is the selection committee likely to send the Bears for March Madness?

photo via @calwbball twitter

We’re less than a week away from Selection Sunday (5:00 p.m. PT, ESPN), but with all power conference tournaments complete, the vast majority of at-large tournament candidates have wrapped up their pre-NCAA-tournament schedule. We’ve reached the point when we can start talking about what Cal might face in their first NCAA tournament appearance since 2019.

Here is everything (and probably more) that you might want to know before dance cards are assigned.

What do the experts say?

All projections made after games that occurred on Sunday, March 9 unless otherwise noted.

Charlie Creme, ESPN:

Megan Gauer, HerHoopStats:

Mark Schindler, The Athletic ($), as of March 7:

CBS Sports, as of March 7 (they don’t produce a full bracket)

College Sports Madness:

How does Cal’s resume stack up?

So, the experts have Cal ranged between a 6 seed and an 8 seed. I’ve taken the teams generally projected to also be in that range, and charted out some of the criteria that the selection committee might use to rank them:

Notes: NET quads in WBB are defined as:

• Quad 1: Home (1-25), Neutral (1-35), Away (1-45).

• Quad 2: Home (26-55), Neutral (36-65), Away (46-80).

Best win/worst loss is represented by the NET ranking, so Cal’s best win is over NET #16 NC State, and their worst loss is to NET #62 Clemson.

If I’m trying to be objective, I’d have Cal ahead of the following teams listed above: Utah (Cal has a better record against a tougher schedule), Florida State (ditto), and Creighton (zero quad 1 wins). And I’d have Cal behind the following teams: Iowa (more quad 1 wins, tougher schedule), West Virginia (Better best wins, tougher schedule), Michigan State (very close resume, tie goes to the team with the head-to-head win), and Louisville (better best win, better worst loss, better strength of schedule, head to head win).

But even then, the margin here is very slim. And the other four teams on the list? Almost impossible to parse. Should Vanderbilt get credit for playing more Quad 1 games, but losing all of them? Should Oklahoma State go ahead of Cal because they have better good wins, or behind Cal for having a couple of really ugly losses? Should Michigan’s better strength of schedule push them over the top when they have a bad loss as well? It’s a question of what you value, and I don’t know that there is a wrong answer.

This is a long way of saying that although the consensus (of five people who do this for WBB) says that Cal is likely an 8 seed, the margins are fine enough that I wouldn’t be surprised to see Cal as a 7 or even a 6 seed (or, I guess, a 9 seed).

Another stat worth considering? Wins Above Bubble (WAB). If you want an in-depth explainer, this article is excellent, but the quick explanation is that it gives you positive points for every win and negative points for every loss, with wins over good teams worth more than wins over bad teams (and losses to bad teams being more damaging than losses to good teams).

Bart Torvik’s website calculates WAB, and Cal places 22 in the metric, which would translate directly to a 6 seed. There’s hope that Cal can escape the dreaded 8/9 game!

First Round opponent rooting guide

Hey, I warned you a month ago I was going to do exactly this. It’s time for the opponent defensive turnover percentage chart:

This is a list of teams projected to be in the 8-11 seed range, sorted by how well they force teams to turn the ball over. Sweet Oski in the sky, please grant Cal a game against South Dakota State or Iowa State, and please don’t give Cal a game against Harvard, Columbia, or Oregon.

Second Round opponent rooting guide

Cal will be shipped off somewhere to play on the home floor of a top 4 seed. And while Charmin Smith has been open about her hope that Cal will do enough to avoid an 8/9 seed and thus a second round game on the home floor of a #1 seed, I can get even more granular.

First, something worth noting: the top 6 in WBB (South Carolina, UConn, Texas, UCLA, USC, and Notre Dame) have been really, really good this year and are a significant step ahead of the rest of the country. So it goes without saying that Cal’s best bet is to somehow avoid facing any of those teams. But like above, let’s look at the non-ACC teams projected for top 3 seeds and sort them by defensive turnover percentage, to see which team Cal might have the best chance of pulling the shock upset against:

Nightmare scenario: Texas or UConn. Dream scenario: TCU or Kentucky, though that would probably require that Cal be given a 6 seed, so we’re already in dream territory as it is.

If the consensus is accurate and Cal is destined for an 8 seed, then by far the best option is to get sent to UCLA. The Bruins are by far the worst turnover forcing defense of the 1 seeds, and this would represent easy travel for the Bears.

Of course, if Cal survives the first round, they will be underdogs regardless. Historically, roughly 75% of the top 4 seeds who receive home-court advantage end up advancing to the Sweet 16. But our exercise here is to figure out which path gives Cal the greatest chance of being of of those interlopers that make up ~25% of the Sweet 16 in any given year.

Root for a first round game against a team that’s bad at forcing turnovers. Root for Cal to get a 6/7 seed and get sent to Oklahoma, TCU, or Kentucky. If the 8 seed is unavoidable, root for the Bears to get sent to UCLA.

Root for Michelle, Marta, Ioanna, Kayla and the rest of these Bears to get to end this fun season on a deserved high note. Go Bears!