South Carolina, Indiana, Stanford, Virginia Tech top seeds in women's NCAA tournament

The Stanford Cardinal and Virginia Tech Hokies earned the highly contested final two No. 1 seeds in the 2023 NCAA women's basketball tournament, the bracket for which was revealed exclusively on ESPN as part of Selection Sunday.

On the No. 1 seed line, the Pac-12 regular-season co-champion Cardinal and the ACC tournament champion Hokies join the Big Ten regular-season champion Indiana Hoosiers, as well as the top overall seed: the undefeated, defending national champion South Carolina Gamecocks.

With reigning national player of the year Aliyah Boston leading the way, South Carolina — which hasn't lost a game in over a calendar year — is six wins from becoming the fourth program to repeat as national champions (joining UConn, Tennessee and USC) as well as the fifth to complete an undefeated season (alongside UConn, Tennessee, Texas and Baylor).

The final two slots on the 1-seed line were considered fairly open heading into Selection Sunday; according to ESPN Bracketologist Charlie Creme, the Iowa Hawkeyes and UConn Huskies also had cases for securing those spots after strong play to prevail in the Big Ten and Big East tournaments, respectively.

Powered by national player of the year contender Caitlin Clark, Iowa seeks to advance to the program's first Final Four since 1993 (when it was coached by the legendary C. Vivian Stringer). UConn, which fell in the title game to South Carolina last season, is on a quest to play in a record 15th consecutive Final Four and win the school's 12th national championship, which would be its first since 2016.

Iowa and UConn now end up on the No. 2 seed line, along with the Maryland Terrapins and the Utah Utes, with Maryland appearing in South Carolina's quadrant, Iowa in Stanford's, Utah