CNN —
After weeks of grueling action, the women’s NCAA tournament is down to just four teams.
The Final Four games will be held on Friday, with both contests being played in Tampa, Florida.
Here’s everything you need to know about the two semifinal clashes with a spot in Sunday’s national championship game on the line.
The Final Four tips off at 7 p.m. ET with defending champion No. 1 South Carolina facing No. 1 Texas before No. 1 UCLA takes on No. 2 UConn, with their game tipping off 30 minutes after the previous contest has finished.
Both games will be hosted at the Amalie Arena and both will be shown on ESPN.
The first Final Four matchup sees last year’s champion seeking to continue the defense of its title.
The South Carolina Gamecocks have become the team to beat in women’s college basketball in recent years, with head coach Dawn Staley building the team into a perennial winner.
The Gamecocks are aiming to cement their dynasty by winning their third title in four years, thereby becoming the fourth team to win back-to-back national titles, joining Tennessee, Southern California and UConn.
Many of the team’s former star players now ply their trade in the WNBA – such as A’Ja Wilson, Aliyah Boston and Kamilla Cardoso – and the current Gamecock squad has been taking advantage of the ties with those talented alums.
“Relationships are important no matter where you go in life. To be able to talk to alumni and former Gamecocks, it helps our program a lot because they’ve been through it,” guard Te-Hina Paopao told reporters on Thursday.
“They speak life into us. And (Markeshia Grant) helped us during the season with team bonding and just bringing us closer together and just having that involvement with everyone on the team. And it’s helped us greatly and we learn from it. And we’ve continued to use those team-bonding moments to help us in the long run and experience like this.”
A national title would be Staley’s fourth since joining South Carolina, having already lifted the trophy in 2017, 2022 and 2024.
The Basketball Hall of Fame player-turned-coach has been able to maintain South Carolina’s success on the court despite inevitably losing players to the WNBA, and she explained that building trust between her and her squad is the most important aspect in remaining a winning team.
“You have to condition young people to handle real communication. Because if it just happens once, they’re not going to get it,” the 54-year-old said. “If it happens once and then another, a month later, they really aren’t connecting the two.
“So you have to address everything that’s happening in front of them in real time. And then they’ll get used to it. They may not like what you’re saying, they may like what you’re saying at times.
“That’s what builds trust. It’s not: ‘Oh, I’m the head coach, listen to me.’ That’s old parenting. It’s the new-age parenting that’s out here that kids have a say. They want to be listened to. They have something to offer you. And that is how they’re thinking, how they feel and how they want to move and how they want to operate.”
Standing in the Gamecocks’ way is a Texas team on a magical run. The Longhorns are in their fourth ever Final Four and first since the 2002-03 season.
Texas’ offense has been a key reason for their run throughout this year’s tournament, led by forward Madison Booker who’s averaging 16.5 points per game on 50% shooting from the field.
And although Vic Schaefer’s team will come in on a wave of positivity, the Longhorns face a stiff test against South Carolina as they look to win their second national championship. The teams split their two SEC regular season meetings, but Texas lost its two games to the Gamecocks by a combined 36 points, including a 64-45 hammering in the SEC championship game.
In the face of a potential uphill battle against South Carolina, Schaefer said his priority is making sure his players come away from this year’s tournament with no regrets.
“For my kids, I want them to enjoy this. You guys don’t know this, every time they walk in a room somewhere, there’s something there waiting for them,” the Texas head coach told reporters on Thursday. “It’s a box. It’s a pair of shoes. It’s warm-ups. It’s a bag. They can’t wait to leave here go back to the hotel because they think there’s going to be something there for them.
“They need to enjoy this. It’s hard to get here, and yet it is a business trip. They’re good enough. I want them to know that. And for me, there’s so much joy seeing their face, seeing them happy because I know how hard they work. Our kids, they work hard. They embrace toughness. They know we talk about it all the time, and I’m always talking about it.
“It’s one thing to talk it. It’s another thing to walk it. And they don’t like to be told they’ve been punked. They take great pride in not getting punked. When I tell them they’ve gotten punked, they do not like it. So they work hard. So you want them to enjoy it.
Friday’s second Final Four game is also a clash of two teams with vastly different recent histories.
UCLA is playing in its first ever Final Four while for UConn, it is a 24th appearance at this stage of the women’s NCAA tournament.
The emergence of Lauren Betts as a star has been a key component in the Bruins’ success this season, having recorded two 30-point performances so far this tournament already.
The 6’7” center leads the team in points and rebounds per game and has 19 double-doubles which puts her in the top 10 in the country.
When speaking to the media on Thursday, Betts puts her outstanding season in large part down to the “mental work” she’s put in recently, having opened up about her mental health struggles in an article with ESPN where she talked about being bullied for her height.
“I think one of the reasons why I wanted to come out with the story is because I felt like I was finally in the right place to do so,” Betts told reporters. “I think that I just had done a lot of healing since then. I was like: ‘You know what, I just don’t feel like I have to really hide this anymore.’
“I think the responses that I’ve had since then have truly just validated what I did and what I put out. To help young girls who, I guess, just didn’t really have anyone to look up to, personally, I had mentors and I’m really thankful, but I know there’s a lot of young girls who don’t. I think just for me to be an outlet and to kind of validate their feelings and to know there’s someone out there who is dealing with the same thing that I am is, I think, is just really important.”
UCLA has been the Associated Press’ No. 1 ranked team in the country for most of the year and is seeking to cap off a special season by going one step further on Friday.
Although they are in an uncharted position, UCLA head coach Cori Close isn’t surprised at all: “We expected and believed that we would be in Tampa. And that being said, we’re really grateful, but we are ready to compete.”
But the Bruins must overcome one of women’s basketball’s juggernaut teams to continue their run with UConn seeking to once again book its spot in the national championship game.
Despite historically being a benchmark team in the women’s game, the 11-time national champion Huskies are seeking to return to the top of the mountain having not won a title since 2016.
They are looking to go one step further than last year having lost to Caitlin Clark and Iowa in the Final Four. And with Paige Bueckers and Azzi Fudd leading the team, UConn could be well positioned to do so.
The Huskies have better scoring, defense, three-point percentage, ball security and free throw percentage than UCLA and produced a brilliant display in the Elite Eight to comfortably beat No. 1 Southern California, which was missing AP national women’s player of the year JuJu Watkins through injury.
Bueckers – who has averaged 30.5 points per game in the Huskies’ last three outings – highlighted the danger Betts will pose when the two teams face off on Friday, while also talking about the weight that comes with playing for UConn as they seek to bring a 12th national championship back to Storrs.
“I think before you even get here, you kind of know the pressures that exist by committing to UConn. So by making that decision to want to come here and try to live up to that and be a part of a legendary program, it’s a decision you have to make even before you step on campus,” the 23-year-old, who is playing in her final college season, said.
“And once you walk inside the practice facility, you see all the history, all the names, all the banners, it’s just motivation. Obviously, there’s expectations here, and anything less than a national championship is really a disappointment. As players, that’s what you play for and what you want to live up to. And the expectations and the pressure, it’s a privilege. So we all look at it as such.”
