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TAMPA — Last year’s women’s national championship game is difficult to top on all fronts. It drew 18.9 million viewers, the first to top the men’s title game, thanks to the dual ratings draw of Caitlin Clark and the powerhouse South Carolina Gamecocks.
This year is submitting its best bid.
After the UConn Huskies trounced the UCLA Bruins 85–51 in the Final Four in Tampa on Friday, they will face South Carolina in the 2025 National Championship. The Gamecocks defeated the Texas Longhorns 74-57.
The battle pits two Final Four veterans against each other: UConn, the winningest program in women’s basketball history, against South Carolina, who are chasing their third title in four years, and fourth since 2017. Led by head coach Dawn Staley, the Gamecocks are the only team with multiple national championships since UConn last won in 2016. South Carolina head coach Dawn Staley has won three titles; UConn head coach Geno Auriemma has won eleven.
A loss for UConn would mark a decade without a title, tying the longest drought since Auriemma took over as head coach. (He joined the team in the 1985–1986 season and won his first title in 1995.)
“Over the last seven, eight, nine years, they’ve played basketball at an exceptionally high level,” Auriemma said of South Carolina in the postgame press conference. “It does feel like the two most prominent programs right now in women’s college basketball are playing for the right to be national champions. And we both deserve it.”
In lieu of Clark, this year’s title game will pit South Carolina against UConn star Paige Bueckers, the 2021 Wooden Award winner expected to be the No. 1 pick in the 2025 WNBA draft on April 14.
She is the most famous player on the college level and is sure to bring in viewers as she has the entire tournament. The Huskies played in the most-watched games in the first two rounds of the tournament, and would have likely been in the most-watched games of the Sweet 16 and Elite Eight if not for falling in the ESPN slot instead of ABC.
Final Four viewership numbers are expected to drop on Saturday night.
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