2026 Women’s NCAA Brackets Year in Review

The 2026 NCAA Women’s Tournament ended with UCLA winning its first NCAA women’s title, capping off our second year offering NCAA Women’s Basketball Brackets.

Overall, it was a case of “UConn giveth, and UConn taketh away” compared to our Year One results. Last year, our most common brackets nailed both the title winner and the championship matchup. This year, our primary brackets fell short at the Final Four — though several alternate brackets correctly projected the UCLA vs. South Carolina title game.

2026 Women’s NCAA Tournament Overview

No. 1 UCLA won the championship at an all-No. 1 seed Final Four that featured the same four teams as the previous year. They edged Texas in a defensive semifinal before dominating South Carolina in the title game.
South Carolina reached the final by upsetting No. 1 Connecticut, avenging their blowout loss in the previous year’s championship game.
Texas was the other Final Four team but fell short, as star Madison Booker struggled mightily against UCLA’s defense, shooting 3-for-23.
The Elite Eight included just one No. 2 seed (Michigan), along with No. 3 seeds TCU and Duke, and a strong run from No. 6 seed Notre Dame.
No. 10 Virginia was the only double-digit seed to advance past the first round, and they followed that up by upsetting No. 2 Iowa to reach the Sweet 16.

Reminder: If you used the NCAA Bracket Picks product this year, please complete our subscriber survey if one is available to you, so we can collect real-world data on how our brackets performed.

PoolGenius 2026 Bracket Performance Summary

Our pre-tournament data identified a clear top tier: all four No. 1 seeds plus No. 2 LSU. Connecticut stood out as the top-rated team, entering the tournament undefeated and about four points ahead of the rest in our power ratings.

Our simulations projected Connecticut as the favorite, but only at around 36% to win the title. The betting market, however, was significantly more bullish, pricing Connecticut at implied odds exceeding 60%.

Because we rated LSU as the strongest team outside the No. 1 seeds, UCLA’s projected path was slightly more difficult. That dynamic influenced how our optimized brackets were constructed:

Most Best Brackets featured Connecticut as champion due to their high title odds.
Texas appeared more frequently as runner-up than UCLA, largely due to relative path difficulty between two similarly rated teams.
UCLA appeared regularly in alternate brackets, often paired with a South Carolina upset of Connecticut — a scenario that meaningfully increased UCLA’s title chances.

Survey Results

This data reflects survey responses collected through April 23.

In a year where our most common champion and runner-up picks were eliminated in the Final Four, overall performance came in below expectations. Approximately 7% of entries won, compared to an expected 11%.

This contrasted sharply with last year, when our top selections advanced as projected and produced an extremely high win rate. As we noted in last year’s review, performance can vary significantly depending on whether primary or alternate bracket paths materialize.

That dynamic played out this year. Fewer subscribers entered multiple brackets in the women’s contest, which limited exposure to alternate scenarios. As a result, overall win rates were below average.

However, those who entered multiple brackets performed well. In particular, users submitting three brackets saw nearly a 10x edge, as several alternate builds correctly projected UCLA over South Carolina. We also saw relatively stronger performance in larger pools, where multi-entry strategies are more common.

Through two years, results have averaged out to a strong overall performance: 30% of entries finishing in the money versus an expected 8%, or a 3.7x edge.

What a Winning Bracket Looked Like

Most winning entries likely had UCLA as champion and South Carolina as runner-up. Given Connecticut’s popularity, some entries may have still cashed by picking UCLA while accumulating enough points in earlier rounds.

With relatively few major upsets, differentiation often came from earlier swing games — particularly No. 2 vs. No. 3 Sweet 16 matchups and No. 4 vs. No. 5 second-round games.

Performance by Round

Our brackets outperformed the public in the early rounds, gaining more than one additional correct pick per round in both the Sweet 16 and Elite Eight, and finishing 2–3 wins better in the first round.

However, those gains were erased in the Final Four, where South Carolina’s upset of Connecticut and UCLA’s win over Texas went against our most heavily weighted outcomes.

Bracket Type	Correct R1 Picks	Correct R2 Picks	Correct Sweet 16 Picks	Correct Elite 8 Picks	Correct Finalist Picks	Correct Champ Picks
PG "Best Brackets" For 1-2-4-8-16-32 Scoring	29.3	12.0	6.00	3.76	0.31	0.00
PG "Best Brackets" For All Scoring Rules	29.1	12.0	6.00	3.74	0.31	0.00
All PG Brackets For 1-2-4-8-16-32 Scoring	29.0	12.2	5.94	3.55	0.53	0.15
All PG Brackets	28.8	12.3	5.92	3.54	0.54	0.15
The General Public	26.7	11.4	4.88	2.86	0.62	0.13

What Worked — and What Didn’t

A successful bracket strategy — especially in larger pools — requires making calculated decisions about when to follow the crowd and when to differentiate.

In 2026, Connecticut was extreme chalk. The strategic decision came down to either:

Leaning into Connecticut while outperforming other Connecticut-heavy brackets elsewhere, or
Allocating more exposure to other top contenders with lower popularity but still meaningful title odds.

In hindsight, leaning too heavily toward the market consensus hurt performance. While our data identified Connecticut as the top team, the gap between them and the field was not nearly as large in our initial ratings as the betting market implied.

Connecticut’s undefeated record came against a relatively weaker schedule, while other top teams (notably the SEC contenders and UCLA) accumulated losses largely by playing each other.

A more aggressive, model-driven approach — placing slightly less weight on market pricing — would have increased exposure to teams like UCLA and Texas, particularly in larger pool formats.

1) Connecticut Picked a Bad Night

Connecticut struggled offensively in the Final Four against South Carolina, scoring just 48 points as stars Sarah Strong and Azzi Fudd combined to shoot 7-for-31.

More broadly, Connecticut had not faced a team of South Carolina’s caliber all season, introducing more uncertainty around their true dominance. The market effectively priced Connecticut as significantly better than the field — a gap that may not have been fully justified.

2) Top-Tier Team Assessment Was Strong

The Final Four being entirely composed of No. 1 seeds reinforced that our top-tier evaluation was directionally correct.

Not only did those teams advance, but they did so convincingly. UCLA’s 12-point Elite Eight win over Duke was the closest game any Final Four team played before the national semifinals.

We also identified LSU as a near top-tier team, and they lost a close shootout by two points to Duke in the Sweet 16.

3) Correct Call on Iowa (and TCU)

We downgraded No. 2 Iowa due to injuries and weaker underlying metrics, projecting TCU to advance instead.

When Iowa struggled early and then lost to No. 10 Virginia, our brackets were far less impacted than the public, which heavily favored Iowa to advance.

While this didn’t matter for brackets that missed the champion, it likely helped UCLA-winning brackets outperform competing entries.

Wrapping It Up

As in Year One, we had a strong position on Connecticut. Last year, that paid off. This year, it didn’t.

Bracket contests inherently carry high variance, where a small number of outcomes can drive results. While our primary builds fell short, several alternate brackets correctly captured the UCLA over South Carolina outcome — though fewer users played those combinations.

This serves as a clear example of why alternate brackets are critical. They are designed to complement the most likely outcome by covering the most valuable alternative scenarios.

In Year One, the primary builds delivered. In Year Two, the alternates were the key to success.