With Selection Sunday (yes, Sunday this year) basically a month away, talk is heating up around seeding and who could make a March run. The NCAA Selection Committee recently revealed its top 16 seeds, and ESPN’s Charlie Creme has been updating his bracketology regularly.

But every year, there are at least one or two teams that sneak up to those better seed lines thanks to fortunate resumes that perhaps oversell their true standing in the national landscape. We’ve taken a look at a handful of the teams Creme has had on the No. 2 or No. 3 line to find who those teams might be.

Obviously, everyone in this group is a contender in some way. You don’t get to this point without at least having a shot to make the Final Four. But who are the teams that have a truly realistic chance at knocking off a No. 1 seed and making the Final Four? And who are the teams that could be headed for a first-weekend exit at the hands of a No. 6 or No. 7?

Arizona: Contender

Dawn Staley has to be the frontrunner for Coach of the Year, but it’s hard to ignore the job Adia Barnes has done in keeping this team in the top ten despite losing the face of the rebuild in Aari McDonald. Arizona has ridden the momentum of last year’s enthralling postseason run and is in position to do it again this March.

Under Barnes, the Wildcats have become one of the nation’s premier defensive units by forcing turnovers without getting out of rebounding position. It’s rare for a team to be able to accomplish both. Rare enough, in fact, that Arizona is the only team that has rebounded over 70 percent of opponent misses and turned opponents over on over 22 percent of their possessions in each of the last two seasons.

The scariest part for the rest of the country? The Wildcat defense is doing this despite some bad luck this season. As Ken Pomeroy has pointed out in the past, defenses have minimal control over whether an opponent’s 3-pointers go in. The scouting report on shooters generally isn’t “force them to miss 3s;” it’s “force them to put the ball on the floor instead of taking 3s in the first place.” This is the concept driving Arizona’s defensive misfortune: Their opponent 3-point percentage is in the bottom half of the country even though they have a top-30 2-point defense and rank in the top quarter of teams in opponent 3-point rate.

At some point, Arizona’s opponents are going to start missing 3s. When that happens, watch out.

Michigan: Contender

This answer may have been different a month ago when Michigan was coming off of a 21-point loss to Nebraska. To that point, the Wolverines’ only road tests against tournament-level competition had resulted in blowout defeats, which left them with a lot of questions.

Since then, they’ve rattled off eight straight wins, including drubbings of Maryland and Ohio State on the road. The Wolverines will have to get used to life without Leigha Brown for a while, but that didn’t phase them in their most recent win over Iowa on Sunday. The way freshman Laila Phelia (24 points) and sophomore Cameron Williams (8 points on 4-of-5 shooting) played in that one goes to show that this team may be deeper than they’ve gotten credit for.

Laila Phelia had a career night in @umichwbball's win over Iowa!

The freshman scored 24 points and notched 3 assists, both career-highs! She also secured 4 rebounds.

She is the 𝘽1𝙂 𝘾𝙤-𝙁𝙧𝙚𝙨𝙝𝙢𝙖𝙣 𝙋𝙡𝙖𝙮𝙚𝙧 𝙤𝙛 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙒𝙚𝙚𝙠! pic.twitter.com/3d83rzBn3V

— Michigan On BTN (@MichiganOnBTN) February 7, 2022

A quick look at Michigan’s remaining schedule shows that they’ll be favored in every game until the return trip to Iowa in their regular season finale. Already atop the Big Ten standings, they have to be considered the favorites to win the league, and the No. 3 seed they were given in the first NCAA seeding reveal should turn into a No. 2 the next time around.

If Michigan can finish off the Big Ten regular season championship and win the conference tournament as well, they still may have a path to a No. 1 seed. With all the seniors on this roster starting to play with a sense of urgency, this is a team that could make some serious noise next month.

Tennessee: Pretender

Our first pretender on the board fell to a No. 3 seed in Creme’s most recent bracketology. What Kellie Harper has accomplished in Year 3 in Knoxville has been commendable, especially when you consider that she spent the better part of two months going 11-1 without leading returning scorer Rae Burrell.

But Rocky Top has been living on the edge all season. They are 7-0 in games decided by single digits, and they’ve pulled out both of their overtime games so far. Losses in the last two weeks to Auburn by 10, Florida by 25 and UConn by 19 have given us a pretty good indication that this team has a long way to go if it wants to be worthy of a No. 2 seed.

There are shades of last year’s Texas A&M team all over this profile. You may recall that those Aggies rode their close-game magic into the first weekend of the NCAA Tournament, when they narrowly avoided upsets to No. 15 seed Troy and No. 7 seed Iowa State, but they still became the first No. 2 seed to fall after losing to Arizona in the Sweet 16. Don’t be surprised to see a similar fate for the Lady Vols.

Texas: Pretender

Vic Schaefer’s pressure defense has been effective all season: The Longhorns are holding opponents below 60 points per game for the first time in six years. It’s a defense that limited scoring juggernaut Iowa State (albeit without Ashley and Aubrey Joens) and Kansas State to under 50 points, and held Ayoka Lee to a human 45 percent from the field.

So why are they pretenders? Their three-game losing streak and .500 record in conference play raise some small red flags, but ultimately it comes down to how they score the ball. Much of the Longhorns’ offense comes from their ability to generate turnovers and get out and run. In the halfcourt, they rely on getting the ball on the rim and crashing the glass. When Texas goes up against teams who take care of the ball and have enough frontcourt size to keep them off the offensive boards, they run into trouble.

Texas also heavily eschews the 3-point line, ranking 326th in 3-point attempt rate. It’s another reason lengthy teams give them trouble — with so much of their scoring coming in the paint, good rim protectors can have a greater impact. Kansas’ Taiyanna Jackson and Tennessee’s Alexus Dye each had four blocks in wins over Texas, and Dye’s teammate, Tamari Key, racked up an incredible 10 blocks.

To be contenders, you have to be able to compete with South Carolina. With all the length and shot blocking ability the Gamecocks have, it’d be tough to imagine Texas scoring enough to win that matchup. Add in the fact that they rank 299th in free-throw percentage, and the odds of them holding a late-game lead over a pesky lower seed are even lower.

Indiana and UConn: It depends

This may be a bit of a cop-out, but the correct answer for each of these teams hinges on health and player availability.

For Indiana, that comes down to when Mackenzie Holmes can return. The Hoosiers weren’t deep even before she went down with a knee injury, but at full strength their starting five can compete with just about anybody in the country. Sans Holmes, Indiana has looked frighteningly beatable.

They’ve gone 4-1, but that includes three scares against non-tournament teams — an overtime win and a seven-point win over Purdue, and a win over Minnesota in which they trailed at the fourth-quarter media timeout — and a beatdown at the hands of Michigan. The Wolverines exposed the vulnerability of what’s left of Indiana’s frontcourt by out-rebounding the Hoosiers by a whopping 32.

According to CBB Analytics, Indiana has outscored opponents by 27.6 points per 100 possessions with Holmes on the court this year and just 7.9 without her, basically the equivalent of dropping from North Carolina to Fairfield. If Holmes is back, the Hoosiers can build on their Elite Eight run last year and make their first ever Final Four. Without her, don’t count on the Sweet 16.

From UConn’s perspective, Paige Bueckers is the obvious name that comes to mind, but health has been an issue up and down the roster all season. Azzi Fudd, Christyn Williams, Dorka Juhasz and Nika Mühl have all missed time at various points.

Like Indiana, the Huskies have been able to avoid too much damage in the loss column; Geno Auriemma’s squad has just one loss since Christmas. But like Indiana, UConn has looked human in some of its wins — something we aren’t used to seeing from this team in conference play. The Huskies have already won three Big East games by single digits, including an uninspiring eight-point win over sub-.500 Providence. And in that one loss, they had just six rotation players available and had no answer for Oregon.

The good news for UConn is that the last two wins have been dominant ones against quality competition, and Fudd finally looked like the No. 1 recruit in their 19-point win over Tennessee on Sunday. But even when Bueckers comes back, this team will have a lot of gelling to do before it’s at its peak. This is a program that hasn’t missed the Final Four since Android phones came out, but it’s important to remember that South Carolina ran away from them in their November matchup with Bueckers still on the court. The recent returns are promising, but to get back into that No. 1 conversation, they’ll need Bueckers at full strength.

Oregon: Contender

Oregon has dealt with as many personnel issues as UConn has, but the key for the Ducks is timing. Oregon has its rotation back, and, knock on wood, should have its full complement of stars for the final month of the regular season and into the postseason.

Upon getting healthy, Oregon went on an impressive run that included multiple top-ten victories to vault themselves back into the AP Poll top 20. That stretch says a lot about this team’s ceiling. The Ducks didn’t look the part in their Arizona trip this past weekend, but a combined 7-for-33 mark from 3 isn’t the type of performance that we should expect going forward.

Those two games are a good reminder that Oregon is still going to have ups and downs throughout the next month — it’s a group that had to wait until a few weeks ago to all play together, after all. If there’s one thing we’ve learned about Kelly Graves going back to his time with Gonzaga, it’s that he knows how to have his teams playing their best basketball at the right time. When the calendar flips to March, look for the version of Oregon that knocked off two top-ten teams in one week.

Iowa State: Contender

In our championship betting preview last month, we wrote that we’d know a lot more about Iowa State after their games against Texas and Baylor. Turns out, all we really know is that the Joens sisters are critical to their team’s success.

Both Ashley and Aubrey missed their game against Texas due to COVID-19 protocols, and the Cyclones managed just 48 points in an 18-point defeat. The sisters returned against Baylor, but their shooting didn’t — they combined to hit just four of their 16 shots. Again, the Cyclones were on the wrong end of a lopsided score.

Iowa State has gotten back on track since, winning all four of their games by at least 15. It’s fair to wonder how they’d fare against the top of the Big 12 with their starters on the court and hitting shots. We’ll have to wait until the rematches later this month for that. For now, the metrics still love this team, as the Her Hoop Stats ratings and the Massey Ratings each have them in the top ten. Given how dangerous they’ve looked in all but one week this season, it’s hard to view the Cyclones as anything but contenders.

Calvin Wetzel is a contributing writer at Just Women’s Sports, covering basketball and betting. He also contributes to Her Hoop Stats and Bet Her. Follow him on Twitter at @cwetzel31.

Longtime USWNT fixture Carli Lloyd took to Instagram Wednesday morning to announce that she’s pregnant with her first child. 

"Baby Hollins coming in October 2024!" she wrote. The caption framed a collaged image of baby clothes, an ultrasound photo, and syringes indicating what she described as a "rollercoaster" fertility journey.

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In a Women’s Health story published in tandem with Lloyd’s post, the Fox Sports analyst and correspondent opened up about her struggles with infertility and the lengthy IVF treatments she kept hidden from the public eye.

"Soccer taught me how to work hard, persevere, be resilient, and never give up. I would do whatever it took to prepare, and usually when I prepared, I got results," Lloyd told Women’s Health’s Amanda Lucci. "But I found out that I didn’t know much about this world. I was very naive to think that we wouldn’t have any issues getting pregnant. And so it began."

Lloyd went on to discuss her road to pregnancy in great detail, sharing the highs and lows of the process and expressing gratitude for the care and support her family and medical team provided along the way. She rounded out the piece with a nod toward others navigating the same challenges, encouraging people to share their own pregnancy journeys, painful as they may be.

"My story is currently a happy one, but I know there are other women who are facing challenges in their pregnancy journey. I see you and I understand your pain," she said. "My hope is that more and more women will speak up about this topic, because their stories helped me. I also wish for more resources, funding, and education around fertility treatments. There is much to be done, and I hope I can play a role in helping."

The 41-year-old New Jersey native retired from professional soccer in 2021, closing out her decorated career with 316 international appearances, the second-most in USWNT history, in addition to 134 international goals. A legend on the field, Lloyd walked away from the game with two World Cups, two Olympic gold medals, and two FIFA Player of the Year awards.

On Tuesday, FIFPRO announced the launch of Project ACL, a three-year research initiative designed to address a steep uptick in ACL injuries across women's professional football.

Project ACL is a joint venture between FIFPRO, England’s Professional Footballers’ Association (PFA), Nike, and Leeds Beckett University. While the central case study will focus on England’s top-flight Women's Super League, the findings will be distributed around the world.

ACL tears are between two- and six-times more likely to occur in women footballers than men, according to The Guardian. And with both domestic and international programming on the rise for the women’s game, we’ve seen some of the sport's biggest names moved to the season-ending injury list with ACL-related knocks.

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Soccer superstars like Vivianne Miedema, Beth Mead, Catarina Macario, Marta, and England captain Leah Williamson have all struggled with their ACLs in recent years, though all have since returned to the field. In January, Chelsea and Australia forward Sam Kerr was herself sidelined with the injury, kicking off a year of similar cases across women’s professional leagues. And just yesterday, the Spirit announced defender Anna Heilferty would miss the rest of the NWSL season with a torn ACL. The news comes less than two weeks after Bay FC captain Alex Loera went down with the same injury. 

Project ACL will closely study players in the WSL, monitoring travel, training, and recovery practices to look for trends that could be used to prevent the injury in the future. Availability of sports science and medical resources within individual clubs will be taken into account throughout the process.

ACL injuries in women's football have long outpaced the same injury in the men's game, but resources for specialized prevention and treatment still lag behind. Investment in achieving a deeper, more specialized understanding of the problem should hopefully alleviate the issue both on and off the field.

With recent transfers Talia von Oelhoffen and Kiki Iriafen joining first-team All-American JuJu Watkins and the nation’s No. 1 recruiting class at USC next season, the Trojans look to transition from an up-and-coming squad to a legitimate title contender. 

Former Oregon State graduate student von Oelhoffen is the latest collegiate talent to commit to the program, announcing her transfer Monday via ESPN. She follows ex-Stanford leading-scorer Iriafen in the jump to the pair’s one-time Pac-12 rival.

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The 5-foot-11 Washington native was a two-time All-Pac-12 guard during her time at Oregon State. But after the recent dissolution of the Pac-12, the Corvallis side found themselves without a permanent home conference going forward. Many big name players opted to take their skill elsewhere as a result, with von Oelhoffen’s fellow ex-Beaver Raegan Beers announcing her own departure to Oklahoma on Monday.

According to DraftKings, USC is now tied with UConn for the second-best betting odds to win the 2025 NCAA women’s tournament. Dawn Staley’s tested South Carolina side, poised for a repeat performance, holds down the number one spot.

Last year, LSU loaded up in the transfer portal after beating Iowa to win the 2023 national championship. The Tigers were clear favorites coming into the 2023-24 season, but were bounced in the Elite Eight by Caitlin Clark’s Hawkeyes. Shortly thereafter, star transfer Hailey Van Lith opted to transfer a second time, this time signing with TCU. 

Yet while history proves that an excess of star power doesn’t always translate to on-court chemistry, on paper, USC sure looks ready to hold their own — in 2025 and beyond.

The United States and Mexico have withdrawn their joint bid to host the 2027 Women’s World Cup, per a Monday afternoon release from U.S. Soccer and the Mexican Football Federation.

According to the statement, they will instead focus on developing a "more equitable" bid for the 2031 tournament, with the ultimate goal of "eliminating investment disparities" between the men’s and women’s tournaments.

The federations went on to cite the upcoming 2026 Men’s World Cup in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico as an opportunity to build support for local infrastructure, improve audience engagement, and scale up media and partnership deals in preparation to "host a record-breaking tournament in 2031."

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"Hosting a World Cup tournament is a huge undertaking — and having additional time to prepare allows us to maximize its impact across the globe," said U.S. Soccer President Cindy Parlow Cone. "Shifting our bid will enable us to host a record-breaking Women’s World Cup in 2031 that will help to grow and raise the level of the women’s game both here at home as well as across the globe."

The decision leaves just Brazil and a joint bid from Belgium, Germany, and the Netherlands in the running for the 2027 host spot. Brazil — the rumored frontrunner — has never hosted a Women’s World Cup, while Germany hosted the 2011 tournament as a solo venture. 

Furthermore, this postponement doesn’t mean the U.S. is a shoo-in for 2031, as it's been previously reported that 2022 UEFA Women's EURO host England is considering their own Women's World Cup bid. FIFA is scheduled to confirm the winning bid after the FIFA Congress votes on May 17th.