Half of women’s Final Four field set

With No. 1 seeds Mississippi State and Louisville already punching their tickets to the women’s Final Four, four other teams will seek to join them Monday night.

No. 1 UConn will take on defending champion and No. 2 seed South Carolina in Albany Region final at 7 p.m. ET, followed by No. 1 Notre Dame vs. No. 2 Oregon in the Spokane Region final at 9 p.m. ET.

UConn will be seeking its 19th Final Four appearance and ultimately its 12th national title after seeing its run of four straight championships come to an end last year.

Defending champion South Carolina and Notre Dame, which won its only title in 2001, are seeking their third and seventh Final Four spots, respectively, while Oregon, back in the Elite Eight for the second straight year, is hoping to reach its first ever Final Four.

Wrapping up the Elite Eight, Monday’s victors will join the Mississippi State Bulldogs, who beat No. 3 UCLA 89-73, and the Louisville Cardinals, who beat No. 6 Oregon State 76-43.

The Bulldogs are playing in the Final Four for the second straight year. Last year, they shocked UConn by ending the Huskies’ 111-game winning streak in the national semifinals before falling to South Carolina in the title game.

Standing in the Bulldogs’ way of a return to the title game is Louisville, which is making its third Final Four trip under coach Jeff Walz. Louisville lost to UConn in the national championship game in 2009 and 2013.

The Final Four will get underway Friday at Nationwide Arena in Columbus, Ohio, with the championship game set for Sunday, April 1.