It’s not March yet, but with the way this past Sunday went, the madness has already arrived for ACC women’s basketball.
Luckily for its fans, the wild endings to regular season showdowns will very soon make their way to a tournament setting next week.
The 2025 Ally ACC Women’s Basketball Tournament will tip-off Wednesday at the First Horizon Coliseum in Greensboro. Even with the addition of SMU, Stanford and Cal this past offseason, the tournament will still feature the top 15 teams, leaving three teams out of contention for the ACC title.
Seeds 1-4 will receive a double bye while seeds 5-9 will receive first-round byes. The nine-seed is predetermined to play the eight-seed in the second round on March 6.
As the ACC stands Monday after its only undefeated team, No. 3 Notre Dame, lost its first conference game at No. 9 NC State, the top four seeds could feature the Fighting Irish, the Wolfpack, No. 8 UNC and Louisville in that order. Those teams would wait on the following order of Florida State, Duke, Cal, Georgia Tech and Virginia Tech, who would all begin action in the second round.
Virginia, Clemson, Stanford, Boston College, Syracuse and Miami would battle to survive the first round.
With two games left in the regular season, though, there could be some moving parts in the bracket landscape.
The five best teams under Notre Dame are all within two games of each other, and even Notre Dame isn’t a lock for first place. The Fighting Irish, sitting at 15-1 in ACC play, still have two tough opponents remaining in the nation’s leading scorer Ta’Niya Latson and Florida State (12-4 in the ACC) and a Louisville (12-4) team that has won six of its last eight (wins over then No. 21 Cal and then No. 11 Duke).
Notre Dame will play Florida State for the first time, but it did beat Louisville 89-71 earlier this month behind a season-high 34 points from star guard Hannah Hidalgo.
NC State (14-2) has a much easier path to the one seed, finishing its season with Wake Forest and SMU which are two teams that will likely miss the ACC tournament. Confidence for the Wolfpack should be sky-high after knocking down the then No. 1 team Sunday, and the possibility of securing a top two seed should create some extra motivation.
UNC (13-3) and Duke (12-4) will face-off Thursday at Cameron Indoor Stadium in a rematch of January’s gritty 53-46 overtime battle won by the Tar Heels. After a achieving a fourth-quarter comeback win over Louisville Sunday without standout forward Alyssa Ustby, UNC should feel good about possibly earning a top three seed, especially with hosting 10th-place Virginia (6-10) to end the season. The question for the Tar Heels will be Ustby’s timeline to return.
As the Louisville game showed, it won’t be easy beating the better teams in the conference without its leading rebounder and double-digit scorer. Not having Ustby in the ACC tournament could bring danger to UNC’s best possible seeding in March Madness as she’s a crucial piece on both sides of the ball.
Duke’s final two games should feel like must-wins, though. The Blue Devils have a possible tie-breaker date with Florida State to end their regular season Sunday, and winning its final two games could be the difference of being a top four seed or not.
The Seminoles, who will host Sunday’s matchup, have won seven of their last nine and will look to challenge Duke’s stifling defense with the second-best scoring offense in the country. And along with winning out, Duke will need Louisville to lose at least once to possibly be a four seed. If Duke wants the best chance to be ACC champions, aiming for the best-case scenario is the way to go, especially after losing to each of the conference’s top four teams in the regular season.
But even after NC State slayed the dragon and further proved how competitive the top of the ACC is, the conference title still feels in favor of the Fighting Irish.
Notre Dame, the defending ACC champion, is having the best season in the ACC, taking down not only two of the top four teams in the conference but also some of the best teams in the country in now No. 5 UConn, No. 4 USC and No. 1 Texas.
For the NCAA Tournament, the Fighting Irish are projected to be a one seed in ESPN’s Women’s Bracketology. Notre Dame has a good chance of being the last ACC team to win the national championship since it won it all in 2018.
