The Sweet Sixteen begins on Friday, and by Monday night, fans of women's college basketball will know which teams are heading to the Final Four in Phoenix, Arizona.
The UConn Huskies are heavily favored to win the championship match again this year. Doing so would give the team their first repeat victory since the 2015-16 season, and if there's one thing the UConn Huskies like, it's victories that come with a side of poetry.
Despite the overwhelming odds that are in the Huskies' favor, there are plenty of NCAAW fans who are already repeating last year's big mistake: underestimating the talent gap that exists between UConn's roster and most of the rest of the field. Last year many people had the UCLA Bruins winning the entire tournament, and were stunned when the team fell 85-51 to the Huskies in the Final Four.
The Huskies haven't gotten worse or loss any skills since Paige Bueckers left, and the team is still coached by the powerhouse duo of Geno Auriemma and Chris Dailey. And while a lot of people love to complain that they don't face an especially tough regular season conference schedule, the Huskies stacked their preseason schedule with tough games and have shown a willingness to meet — and defeat — anyone who wants to show up in the gym. It's entirely possible (even likely) that the Huskies could be in any conference and still be the No. 1 seed at this point in the season.
But it's fun to have a common enemy, and people love an upset. And there are teams who could, maybe, upset the Huskies along the way. Should the Vanderbilt Commodores defeat the Notre Dame Fighting Irish in the Sweet Sixteen, they'll meet the Huskies in the Elite Eight. That game will pit Auriemma and Dailey against Shea Ralph, the head coach of the Commodores who also played for the pair and coached alongside them for 13 years.
If the Huskies win that game, they're very likely to run into a very familiar group of teams, possibly even the exact same teams they saw last year. And while UCLA is dominating the west and Texas and South Carolina have put in tremendous performances all season long in the SEC, the Huskies know exactly what to do with them.
Is UConn's bid to repeat their championship from last year absolutely set in stone? Of course not. But do they have a real shot at making it happen? Absolutely.