A Map of Women’s NCAA Division I Basketball Champions

April showers bring May flowers, but what the heck happens in March? We suppose it brings…sports fans.

While the occasional Major League Baseball Opening Day takes place during the month, March is best known for college basketball. There’s the men’s tournament, aptly named March Madness, along with the NCAA Division I women’s basketball tournament.

As of 2022, 40 single-elimination tournaments have been played since 1982. So let’s jump into winners, appearances, and winning percentages on the map below.

View Women’s NCAA March Madness in a full screen map

NCAA Women’s Basketball Winners

There are 348 teams that participate in NCAA women’s basketball. Of these, just over 60 get to compete in the championship tournament each year. Less have won—even fewer still more than once, as you’ll see on the list below.

• UConn (11)
• Tennessee (8)
• Stanford (3)
• Baylor (3)
• Louisiana Tech (2)
• Notre Dame (2)
• South Carolina (2)
• USC (2)

Just eight teams can say they’ve earned championship rings more than once—though exactly how many times they’ve won varies. Just like the men’s team, UConn has the most wins as of 2022.

The Huskies’ 11 championship wins are three ahead of even the second-best Tennessee team—more than most teams have ever won in total. Even more than all those wins, UConn is also notable for its four-time winning streak from 2013-2016 and for appearing in the semi-finals in 14 consecutive tournaments, as we’ll see next.

Women’s Final Four Appearances

Wins aside, with 348 teams vying for just over 60 tournament spots, making the semi-finals is notable in its own right, especially if done multiple times. The following table contains women’s NCAA teams with five or more final four appearances.

UConn has the most women’s final four appearances, including 14 in a row between 2008-2022, which should come as no surprise, considering their wins. Similarly, Tennessee and Standford’s 18 and 15 semi-final participation is just as unsurprising. Tennessee, while notably absent from the final four since their 2008 win, previously saw multiple streaks in which they made the semi-finals four times in a row: 1986-1989, 1995-1998, and 2000-2008.

Stanford, though with fewer appearances than Tennessee, has appeared more recently in the final four. A semi-finalist in 2022, they also won in 2021. However, Stanford and the tournament do have a decently long history, as their first final four appearance was a win in 1990.

This is where the similarity between the winners discussed in the previous section and appearances ends. Baylor followed Stanford in wins, yet in appearances, Louisiana Tech rankers higher, even with only two wins. This makes us wonder about the winning percentage of the Lady Techsters and others from the map.

NCAA Women’s Division I Basketball Champions’ Winning Percentage

With winners and Final Four appearances completed, we can now look to Finals vs. Champions to determine each team’s winning percentage. The table below shows this calculation for the 15 teams with at least one win under their belt:

Seven teams hold perfect records… Of course, that’s a bit easier for the five with just one winning appearance. However, Baylor and South Carolina have perfect winning percentages with multiple Finals appearances.

However, the most notable may once again be UConn. With a winning percentage of 91.67% across 12 appearances, it just goes to show how seriously the franchise takes basketball—both women’s and men’s.

Speaking of, be sure to check out the Men’s NCAA Tournament Map: Who Has the Most Wins?