Notre Dame will find out what its NCAA tournament path holds when the field of 68 is announced Sunday night.
Where will Notre Dame land when the NCAA women’s basketball tournament bracket is unveiled Sunday night? There are two certainties and just a handful of questions for Niele Ivey’s Fighting Irish heading into selection Sunday.
The most certain of certainties is the Irish will be in the field for the fourth consecutive year under Ivey. Notre Dame currently sports a No. 5 NET ranking and have no chance of not receiving an at-large bid. Purcell Pavilion will also host NCAA first and second round games for the third straight year, because the Irish will be a top four regional seed, which is the requirement to host.
What seed the Irish are awarded and which of the four regions they play in are their two biggest questions that will be answered when the bracket is released. When the NCAA selection committee released its final pretournament top 16 rankings on Feb. 26, the Irish were in position to be the fourth No. 1 regional seed, with UCLA, Texas and USC (in that order) the other No. 1 seeds. But much has changed since then.
Notre Dame lost to Florida State the same day the top 16 reveal was made. It was the second consecutive loss for the Irish following their 19-game winning streak that began on Dec. 5 with a win over Texas and ended on Feb. 23 with a double overtime loss at NC State.
The Irish closed the regular season with a home win over Louisville and opened the ACC Tournament by beating Cal but lost for the third time in five games when they fell to eventual ACC Champion Duke in the tournament semifinals.
Seven teams that Notre Dame has played this season in in the top 16 of the most recent NCAA NET rankings and four more are in the top 30. The Irish have wins over UConn (1), Texas (3), USC (6), Duke (7), North Carolina (20), and Georgia Tech (29). They have lost to Duke, TCU (8), NC State (16), Florida State (25), and Utah (26).
