PHOENIX – Since 2000, there have only been nine different NCAA Tournament winners. The usual suspects: Muffett McGraw’s Notre Dame squads, Kim Mulkey’s Baylor, Pat Summitt’s Tennessee, Tara VanDerveer’s Stanford. And a few outliers: Mulkey again, this time at LSU, Brenda Freese and Maryland in 2006, and Gary Blair and Texas A&M in 2011.
Then, of course, there is the longtime king of women’s college basketball, Geno Auriemma and the more recently crowned, but no less dominant queen, Dawn Staley.
The Huskies are coming off a national title. The Gamecocks have been to five straight Final Fours, with titles in 2022 and 2024. Their blood is as blue as it comes.
Then, there’s Texas and UCLA. Two programs who have been building, recruit by recruit, postseason by postseason, for a chance to join the UConns and South Carolinas of the world.
The Huskies and the Gamecocks have met 16 times, with two coming in the national title game. It’s a matchup that we’ve seen often, but one that never loses its luster. Two coaches that built their programs from the ground up. Two perennial powerhouses. Two teams with yet another chance at a national championship.
Auriemma set the standard by winning 12 national titles, with the first coming in 1995. Staley followed suit after her own historic career as a player, both in college at Virginia and in the WNBA. Everyone else is trying to catch up.
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“UConn has been the standard in women’s basketball for a very long time,” Staley said. Everyone has to measure up to their standard. I think they allow us something to reach for. When you have a traditionally rich program like that, I think it helps us all grow.”
South Carolina has already grown and reached up to UConn’s level. Which is why they continue to match up late in March Madness when most everyone else has gone home.
Raven Johnson, South Carolina’s fifth-year senior point guard, has never missed a Final Four. To her, it’s an expectation, one to be met with urgency and commitment. “The lights are bright here,” she said. “The room for marginal error is very small. I think it starts in practice. Bring your practice habits to the game and you’ll be good.”
Habits are talked about a lot in both South Carolina and UConn’s locker rooms. Bad habits make bad teams, good habits make good teams and great habits make great teams. It seems simple. But according to Serah Williams, who is playing her first season with the Huskies after three at Wisconsin, you don’t know it until you’re in it. “Once you are here, instead of watching it, it definitely makes sense how the program has gotten to where it is,” Williams said. “It is definitely not easy to play here. When they expect something, they expect it. No exceptions.”
For UCLA and Texas, the two up-and-comers who are playing in the second Final Four game, the culture that makes programs great is still in progress. It often starts with a top-tier recruit, someone highly-ranked who comes in and has success, proving to other prospective players that it’s possible.
For Auriemma, that was Kerry Bascom, the program’s first All-American in 1987. For Staley it was A’ja Wilson, who led South Carolina to its first title. For UCLA’s Cori Close, it was Jordin Canada, the No. 1 point guard in her class, who helped UCLA break through to the Elite Eight in 2018. For Vic Schaefer, it’s Rori Harmon, who he recruited first when he was at Mississippi State and then at Texas. Harmon has been his assistant in building the Texas program, taking the Longhorns to two straight Final Fours.
But in order to truly join South Carolina and UConn in the upper echelon, UCLA and Texas need to win a title.
“It’s good to play against the best, to beat the best,” Harmon said. “We’re going to take this opportunity and show what we can do.”
Last season, Texas and UCLA came in wide-eyed, taken aback by the off-court hoopla that can overshadow the task at hand. Close also admits that she was too focused on the portal during her team’s 2025 Final Four run.
“I did a crappy job as a leader,” she said.
This time around Close is delegating the portal and other tasks to her staff, while focusing on the team she has in front of her. If there was ever a time to break through, it’s now. The Bruins have six seniors, four of whom have been with the program for three seasons or more. They’ve built chemistry, developed habits and acquired experience on the biggest stage.
“In the back of our heads, we all know that this is our last go at this,” senior Lauren Betts said. “It’s all or nothing for all of us.”
Texas is in a different position. Most of its core will return next season, including All-American Madison Booker. But it’s the last opportunity for Harmon, who has been instrumental in building the program.
“Rori is doing a great job of making sure that when she leaves, I’m ready to take on that leadership role,” Booker said. “I’ve learned so much from her. I don’t want her to leave. I wish she had another year.”
That’s the culture element of crafting a program. Players who learn from their predecessors and build on their success. Because it’s one thing to get to the Final Four. It’s another to win a title. And it’s a whole different beast to win a title and then do it again.
“The only thing harder than building it is sustaining it,” Close said. “When you sustain it at the level that the teams that are here have done it over the period and the course of years, it’s really incredible.”
UConn and South Carolina are already there. Texas and UCLA are getting close. Two blue bloods. Two rising stars. One soon-to-be national champion among them.
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