The NCAA 2025 women’s tournament continued with the last round of Sweet 16 on Saturday.
Friday, the UCLA, the South Carolina, the LSU and Duke all qualified for the elite eight. On Saturday, TCU, Texas, Uconn and USC joined them.
The stars were released all day. Hailey Van Lith led horns with 26 points, while Madison Booker collected 17 points for Longhorns.
But no one had a better Saturday than Paige Bueckers.
The probable choice n ° 1 of the WNBA 2025 draft was unstoppable in the second period for the Huskies. She has established a career in career with 40 points, which is also a new record in a single UCONN match in an NCAA tournament match. She became the first Huskies player to score more than 30 points in three games of the NCAA Tournament as well.
Uconn is now in the elite eight for the 18th time in the last 19 seasons. The Huskies will face the seeded n ° 1 USC for the second time this season. Trojan horses won the first 72-70 game in December, but they had Juju Watkins in the alignment at the time.
(Find out more: 2025 Hidden of the madness of women’s march: dates, places, channels, how to look))
Here are the strengths of Saturday:
The USC survives without Juju Watkins to retain the state of Kansas
Kennedy Smith entered the vacuum left by the injured star Juju Watkins, marking 19 points to help South California maintain Kansas State 67-61 in Sweet 16 on Saturday.
The best-classified Trojan horses (31-3) were considered as contenders in the title before Watkins torn his right ACL during a victory in the second round on the state of Mississippi. Now they will be outsiders in a revenge match Elite Eight on Monday with Paige Bueckers and Uconn, the second seeded. The Huskies eliminated March Madness’s Trojan horses from last year in the first season of Watkins.
Avery Howell, another first-year student, scored 18 points for the USC, who carried out a sequence of 12-0 during the third quarter to take an advance of 46-39, corresponding to his greatest advantage of the day.
The state of Kansas (28-8) continued to push, however, and equaled it to 51 years at the start of the fourth on a lay-up by Ayoka Lee. Rayah Marshall responded with two consecutive buckets for the USC.
A Serena Sunday layup obtained the Wildcats in the 60-59. Smith responded with a pair of free throws, and the USC was quite solid to the line of fault to close it.
Sunday scored 22 points and Lee had 12 for the Wildcats of the fifth seed (28-8), which failed the second appearance of the Elite Eight and first program since 1982. They beat Kentucky 80-79 in overtime to reach their first Sweet 16 since 2002.
Smith collected 11 points in the first quarter while the Trojan horses built an advance of 19-9.
The Wildcats took the lead 19-16 after the Lay-Up and the Sundell franc launch. USC responded with a pair of 3 points from Howell and Malia Samuels.
Sunday struck a rider and two free throws on the section to help Kansas affirm an advantage of 30-28 at halftime.
The USC arrived in Spokane Arena wearing Nike T-shirts sporting Watkins’ face.
The players spent around a little Bobblehead Watkins, with his “Juju Bun” hairstyle, on the touch during the match.
A day earlier, coach Lindsay Gottlieb said that his team was playing for his star Inuéré: “I think that the dominant feeling is that we can always do something together, and that’s what Juju wants us to do.”
Watkins hoped to lead the USC to its first national title since its acquisition in 2002 and 2003.
Paige Bueckers scored a 40-point career summit, saving Uconn from his step in the first half and alone transforming a tight match against Oklahoma into a rout of 82-59 on Saturday which sent the Huskies to the elite eight of the NCAA female tournament.
Bueckers had 29 points after half-time for the Huskies, which dragged 36-32 at the break. The probable overall choice at the forefront of the WNBA drafts overshadowed its 34 -point previous career record, played on Monday in the victory of the second round of Uconn over the state of southern Dakota, its last home game at Gampel Pavilion.
The electrifying senior guard equaled its career in a career with six 3 points before retiring from the game with 3:06 on the left and Uconn in advance of 80-51.
The Huskies, the second seeded (34-3), winners of 13 consecutive, will be southern California in the regional final on Monday.
Ashlynn Shade added 12 points and Sarah Strong had 11 points and 11 rebounds for Uconn, who seeks to extend her record by winning a 12th national title. The Huskies have reached their fourth Elite Eight in the past five years, but the team of coach Geno Auriemma has not won everything since 2016.
Payton Verhulst scored 16 points for Oklahoma, the third seeded (27-8), which had been playing its first Sweet 16 match since 2013. The Sooners have never beat the Huskies in a series that includes the 2002 national match.
Bueckers took Uconn in the Final Four last season, where he lost against the possible champion of the South Carolina.
The Sooners took an advance of 8-0. The first points of the Huskies occurred on the point at 3 points in drunk just over three minutes in the match, which addressed a race of 11-0 Uconn. The Huskies led 17-12 after the first quarter.
Verhulst struck a 3-point pointer to put the Sooners back at the top, 24-23. She added a rider and 3 others to extend the advance to 29-23. Verhulst collected 13 points in the second quarter.
The 3 of Reyna Scott sent the Sooners on a break with a four -point lead.
Bueckers clearly did not want his collegial career to end, marking eight points at the beginning of the third quarter to advance the Huskies.
Its rapid lay-up extended the advance to 48-40 and the Huskies checked the match from there, leading to 59-46 before the last quarter.
She added a deep 3 which gave Uconn an advance of 62-46 and put the game out of reach for Oklahoma.
Bueckers exceeded Tina Charles for fourth place on the Uconn career score list.
Texas edges with serial n ° 5 Tennessee of seeds in Sweet 16
Madison Booker scored 17 points and the seeded n ° 1 Texas survived Tennessee 67-59, fifth seeded, during a tight battle on Saturday in Sweet 16 of the NCAA female tournament.
Taylor Jones added 12 points and eight rebounds for the Longhorns, who advanced to face TCU in the elite eight.
Booker scored seven in the fourth, including four games in a row with the match equally at 54 with five minutes to do. Tennessee retired to one on a jumper from Ruby Whitehorn, who led the flights with 16 points. Zee Spearman added 13.
After rejecting the lead to four, Texas depended on what brought it to the regional semi-final: the defense.
The Longhorns forced four reversals of Tennessee in the last five minutes and held the volunteers in No Makes on their last five shots. Booker overturned a pair of free throws to seal the victory.
Seeme n ° 2 TCU advance at First Elite Eight with victory on the seeded n ° 3 Notre Dame
Hailey Van Lith scored 12 of her 26 points in the fourth quarter to help the second seeded as a series 3 Notre Dame on Saturday 71-62, in Sweet 16 of the women’s tournament.
Sedona Prince added 21 points for horns in horns (34-3), which qualified for the elite eight for the first time in the history of the school. The next step is Texas to seed on Monday evening.
With the match equally at 52 at the start of the fourth, Van Lith took over. She scored five of the following six points for TCU to give the team’s advance. Each race that the Fighting Irish made, Van Lith and the horns with horns had an answer.
Van Lith, who started his career in Louisville before spending LSU last season, then TCU last year, is on the way to a regional final for the fifth time.
Notre Dame (28-6) was trying to reach the Elite Eight for the first time since 2019. He started slowly before rallying to a 35-33 advance at halftime. Neither of the two teams led by more than four points in the second quarter.
Notre-Dame seemed to express the match at the start of the third quarter, scoring nine consecutive points. Olivia Miles was a large part of the race. She went behind her back while dribbling the ground in transition before launching a pass without a look for a lay-up. Then she struck a 3 before waving her arms to celebrate while she was heading down.
TCU was not shaking. Van Lith did some key defensive games to keep the horns in horns in the game, and they dragged 52-50 before the fourth. TCU carried out 22 of the 24 free throws, including the 16 in the second period.
Report by the Associated Press.
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