Virginia's Historic Run: The First Team Ever to Go from First Four to Sweet 16 in Women's March Madness

Nobody who filled out an NCAA women's bracket picked Virginia to be in the Sweet 16. The Cavaliers entered Tuesday's second-round game as a No. 10 seed — and they were playing a No. 2 seed Iowa team that had reached the Elite Eight in back-to-back years and returned four starters. Virginia needed two extra periods to do it, but when the buzzer sounded at the end of the second overtime, the final score was 81-77, and the Cavaliers had just completed the most improbable journey in the tournament's 44-year history.

Virginia had to win a First Four play-in game on March 19 just to earn the right to be in the 64-team bracket. No team had ever won a First Four game and then advanced as far as the Sweet 16 in the women's tournament. The closest anyone had come was a First Four team reaching the Round of 32 — which Virginia itself accomplished two years ago. Making the Sweet 16 from that starting point meant winning three consecutive elimination games in eight days, including a Round of 64 upset over No. 7 seed Marquette and now the double-overtime dismantling of Iowa.

Virginia guard Kymora Johnson was the story. She scored 11 of the Cavaliers' 17 points in the two overtime periods, hit the tying free throws with 4.2 seconds remaining in the first extra period, and then buried a pull-up mid-range jumper with 38 seconds left in the second OT that gave Virginia a lead it would not surrender. Johnson finished with 31 points, 7 rebounds, and 4 assists on 12-of-24 shooting. Iowa's Kylie Feuerbach, who had scored 26 points to keep the Hawkeyes in the game through regulation, fouled out with 3:12 remaining in the second overtime — a moment that ESPN analyst Carolyn Peck, a former NCAA champion head coach, called "the decisive turning point in the most unlikely game of this tournament."

“Virginia guard Kymora Johnson was the story.”

The broader Sweet 16 picture in the women's bracket is dominated by teams that handled their second-round opponents without drama. South Carolina — ranked No. 1 since November and the defending national champion — defeated Utah by 42 points, extending its streak of consecutive Sweet 16 appearances to 12. Head coach Dawn Staley has now taken the Gamecocks to the Sweet 16 in every year of her tenure dating back to 2014. Texas won by 35 points over DePaul, UConn won by 31 over Rutgers, and UCLA won by 44 over North Carolina State.

The UCLA win deserves particular attention because of what Lauren Betts put on the stat sheet: 35 points, 9 rebounds, and 5 blocks on 14-of-19 shooting. Betts, a 6-foot-3 junior center, has been the most physically dominant player in the women's game this season. Her combination of post scoring, rim protection, and improved perimeter range has made the Bruins a genuine threat to end South Carolina's dynasty — and has elevated her NBA draft conversation well in advance of the new WNBA expansion draft scheduled for June. At her current production pace, multiple analysts at The Athletic project she would be the first or second pick if she entered the WNBA draft today.

The four regions of the women's Sweet 16 are set with a mix of powerhouses and surprise entries that gives the bracket unusual tension. Virginia is the only sub-No. 4 seed remaining on the women's side; every other Sweet 16 team is a No. 1, 2, 3, or 4 seed. That concentration of talent makes Virginia's presence even more remarkable — they are not riding a hot-shooting night or a fluke. They have now beaten four teams in a row, each time as the designated underdog.

On the men's side, the Sweet 16 has its own landmark: for only the second time in tournament history, all 16 remaining teams come from major conferences — a statistic that college basketball analysts attribute to the accelerating transfer portal and name, image, and likeness market making it nearly impossible for mid-majors to retain lottery-caliber talent past their freshman seasons. Duke, the overall No. 1 seed, enters the Sweet 16 having won two games but with two key rotation players dealing with undisclosed injuries. Iowa's men's team — a different squad from the women's program at the same university — pulled off the weekend's biggest men's upset, beating No. 1 seed Florida 73-72 on a buzzer-beating three-pointer by Alvaro Folgueiras.

The Elite Eight is scheduled for March 28–29, with the Final Four returning to Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis on April 4. The women's championship is April 5; the men's final is April 6.

**What this means for you**

For casual bracket participants, Virginia's run has likely destroyed most brackets that had Iowa advancing to the Elite Eight — which accounted for roughly 61 percent of all brackets filed on ESPN's platform, according to data published by ESPN Analytics. Each upset of a projected contender shifts the remaining probability distribution, and Virginia's path now likely runs through either South Carolina or UCLA depending on bracket placement — both of which would be considered heavy favorites.

For the business of women's college basketball, the tournament's second round produced the highest single-day viewership total in the history of the women's tournament on ESPN networks, with Monday's slate averaging 2.4 million viewers across ABC, ESPN, and ESPN2. The Virginia-Iowa double-overtime game peaked at 3.1 million viewers, the most-watched women's tournament game since the 2024 championship. Advertisers have responded: ESPN sources confirmed to Sports Business Journal that remaining ad inventory for the women's Elite Eight has sold out, with 30-second spots commanding $180,000 — up from $95,000 in 2024.