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Cutting down the nets at the end of the Final Four is special enough — months of hard work ending in a national championship. But some teams accomplish even more by completing undefeated seasons.
Since the first NCAA women’s basketball tournament in 1982, the sport has seen its fair share of perfect seasons. Twenty teams have even entered the tournament undefeated, with half of them ending up winning the national championship.
First, some stats on these 20 teams that entered the NCAA tournament undefeated:
- Ten won the national championship
- Of these 20 teams, nine have been UConn; six of those nine UConn teams won the title
- 1998 was the first time two teams entered the tournament unbeaten. It happened again in 2014
- In that 2014 tournament, UConn and Notre Dame ended up playing each other for the national championship
- These 20 teams have a tournament record of 83-10, including 75-7 since the bracket expanded to 64 teams in 1994
- Three programs are on here more than once: UConn, South Carolina…and Vermont
Here’s the full table of these regular season unbeatens.
| TEAM | RECORD (pre-tournament) |
Tournament record |
Finish |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1986 Texas | 29-0 | 5-0 | National champion |
| 1990 Louisiana Tech | 29-0 | 3-1 | Final Four |
| 1992 Vermont | 29-0 | 0-1 | First Round |
| 1993 Vermont | 28-0 | 0-1 | First Round |
| 1995 UConn | 29-0 | 6-0 | National champion |
| 1997 UConn | 30-0 | 3-1 | Elite Eight |
| 1998 Tennessee | 33-0 | 6-0 | National champion |
| 1998 Liberty | 28-0 | 0-1 | First Round |
| 2002 UConn | 33-0 | 6-0 | National champion |
| 2009 UConn | 33-0 | 6-0 | National champion |
| 2010 UConn | 33-0 | 6-0 | National champion |
| 2012 Baylor | 34-0 | 6-0 | National champion |
| 2014 UConn | 34-0 | 6-0 | National champion |
| 2014 Notre Dame | 32-0 | 5-1 | National runner-up |
| 2015 Princeton | 30-0 | 1-1 | Second Round |
| 2016 UConn | 32-0 | 6-0 | National champion |
| 2017 UConn | 32-0 | 4-1 | Final Four |
| 2018 UConn | 32-0 | 4-1 | Final Four |
| 2023 South Carolina | 32-0 | 4-1 | Final Four |
| 2024 South Carolina | 32-0 | 6-0 | National champion |
Interestingly, in the two instances where there were multiple undefeated teams, they’ve ended up facing off both times in March Madness.
BETTER THAN THE REST: Schools with the most NCAA women’s basketball titles
In 1998, undefeated teams played each other in the NCAA tournament for the first time — men or women — as SEC champ Tennessee met Big South champ Liberty in the first round in a No. 1 vs. No. 16 game. Though Liberty led early, the Lady Vols soon took over, winning in a 102-58 rout.
That same year, however, there was a 16-over-1 upset in the bracket, as Harvard stunned Stanford 71-67 for the first-ever 16-over-1 win in NCAA tournament history.
In the other year of the head-to-head game between perfect squads, UConn and Notre Dame started the 2014 NCAA tournament on opposite sides of the bracket. The Huskies and Irish made the dream meeting happen, as UConn beat Notre Dame 79-58 in the undefeated vs. undefeated national championship game.
However, three of these 20 teams left March Madness without winning a tournament game. That Liberty team is joined by the two Vermont entries. Both Vermont campaigns came before expansion, as the Catamounts were seeded No. 9 and No. 8, losing to George Washington and Rutgers in the first round. That Vermont run marked the first time a program completed consecutive undefeated regular seasons.
There was also a five-year run of an undefeated entry starting with that 2014 UConn-Notre Dame double, followed by Princeton (2015) and UConn (2016-18). Of these six teams in five years, all received a No. 1 seed except Princeton. The Ivy League champion Tigers climbed into the top 15 of the AP Top 25 rankings and received a No. 8 seed, which is the highest seed in conference history. Princeton did beat No. 9 Green Bay in the first round — just the Ivy’s second-ever NCAA tournament win after that 1998 Harvard upset — before falling to No. 1 Maryland in the second round. President Barack Obama watched the Tigers in their March Madness run, as his niece Leslie Robinson was a freshman on the team. First Lady Michelle Obama also graduated from Princeton.
The most recent entry on this special list is South Carolina. The Gamecocks started 2023 March Madness unbeaten but fell to Iowa and Caitlin Clark in a Final Four shocker. However, the Gamecocks finished the job in 2024, going undefeated and even toppling Iowa and Caitlin Clark for the national title.