TAMPA, Fla. — The Dawgs are dancing again.
The University of Washington (UW) women's basketball team (19-13 win-loss record) qualified for the 2025 NCAA Tournament Sunday afternoon, surpassing other teams on the bubble.
The 11th-seeded Huskies will face the 11th-seed Columbia Lions Thursday evening in a First Four matchup in the Regional 2 in Birmingham. If UW defeats Columbia, they will advance to face sixth-seeded West Virginia in the first round Saturday. The region's No. 1 seed is perennial powerhouse South Carolina.
The Huskies bounced back from a late-season stretch in which they lost eight of 10 games and fell to a 14-12 overall record. But UW rattled off five consecutive wins in late February and early March to solidify their tournament case.
UW's first season in the Big Ten, which had two No. 1 seeds UCLA and USC, ended with a middling 9-9 record. They were, however, just one game away from a four-way tie for eighth place in the conference.
The Huskies were 0-6 against ranked teams in the regular season, but the selection committee valued the conference's strength as the determining reason to include the Huskies in this year's tournament.
