What to Watch in the Women’s Final Four

The N.C.A.A. girls’s event area has lastly been narrowed to 4 groups. Prime-seeded South Carolina, Stanford and Louisville all validated the choice committee’s rankings, whereas No. 2-seeded Connecticut beat No. 1 North Carolina State to succeed in its 14th consecutive Closing 4, preserving a document streak alive.

Semifinal play will tip off on the Goal Middle in Minneapolis on Friday at 7 p.m. with Louisville versus South Carolina, then proceed with Stanford versus Connecticut at 9:30 p.m. All video games will air on ESPN, and the winners will proceed on to Sunday’s nationwide championship sport.

Listed here are some issues to look out for as you’re watching the ladies’s Closing 4.

Louisville vs. South Carolina, 7 p.m., ESPN

This can be a matchup of No. 1 seeds and, as such, must be a gathering of equals. However the Gamecocks have been ranked No. 1 within the A.P. ballot all season and have misplaced solely twice. Louisville, a perennial event contender for the previous decade underneath coach Jeff Walz, is preventing for its first title — and for the respect the gamers really feel they nonetheless haven’t acquired.

South Carolina enters the sport with its coach, Daybreak Staley, and its greatest participant, the 6-foot-5 junior ahead Aliyah Boston, having simply picked up the Naismith coach and participant of the yr awards. Boston earned her trophy the laborious approach, muscling previous opponents across the basket and preventing for rebounds in addition to blocking pictures.

The Cardinals can match her dimension with the senior ahead Liz Dixon and the sophomore starter Olivia Cochran, however their means to compete with Boston’s finesse and energy — her refined footwork and talent to proceed taking part in by way of contact — will likely be examined.

Louisville’s greatest participant is the 5-foot-7 sophomore guard Hailey Van Lith, who has spent the event stuffing her spotlight reel and scoring prolifically. Van Lith has made 47 p.c of her pictures from the sphere in event play, regardless that she not often has an open look and is smaller than most of her opponents.

She’ll go head-to-head with the South Carolina senior Destanni Henderson, who just isn’t solely harmful from behind the 3-point line, however a superb defender. Van Lith has made it clear that she and the Cardinals will likely be taking part in just like the underdogs that Vegas believes them to be (South Carolina is favored by 8 factors), however that is probably Henderson’s final shot at a title earlier than she enters the W.N.B.A. draft.

The Gamecocks have made their identify as a defense-minded group that shut down a few of the greatest groups within the nation through the common season — together with Connecticut and Stanford. That they had one of many hardest schedules in Division I this season and nonetheless emerged as the highest workforce in girls’s school basketball, with the one ding on their résumé being a shock loss to Kentucky on a buzzer-beater within the Southeastern Convention event.

They haven’t matched up in opposition to Louisville this season, although, and the Cardinals additionally pleasure themselves on energetic and bodily defensive play. The groups’ similarities might make for a low-scoring sport during which whoever is ready to cobble collectively probably the most offense will come out on prime. Louisville has been taking pictures higher from the free throw line this season, which might show the deciding issue.

Connecticut vs. Stanford, 9:30 p.m., ESPN

The defending champion Stanford Cardinal have only one extra impediment to competing for his or her first repeat title: the Connecticut Huskies, the workforce that has received extra back-to-back championships than every other in Division I girls’s school basketball. Stanford returned all however one starter from its title workforce, however it would want its veterans to carry out at their greatest in opposition to the Huskies — particularly, the sophomore phenomenon Paige Bueckers.

The Huskies and the Cardinal each had overwhelming assist from their crowds through the spherical of 8. Connecticut successfully had home-court benefit in Bridgeport — only a stone’s throw from Storrs — whereas Stanford performed in Spokane, the place the teammates and twin sisters Lexie and Lacie Hull grew up and led their highschool to 2 state championships.

In Minneapolis, Connecticut will probably have the louder cheering part due to Bueckers, who performed at Hopkins Excessive College within the Minneapolis suburbs. The Cardinal haven’t performed with out the followers on their aspect within the event to this point, and in what seems to be a good sport, that assist might give the Huskies an edge.

Stanford’s 6-foot-4 Cameron Brink and Connecticut’s 6-foot-5 Olivia Nelson-Ododa are each athletic submit gamers who transfer properly across the basket to attain and rebound, block pictures, and, particularly in Nelson-Ododa’s case, discover their teammates to facilitate a fast offense.

Additionally they each get into foul bother typically, every averaging 2.8 fouls per sport. Essential for each groups, then, will likely be preserving their greatest submit gamers within the sport and in a position to play freely. Each Stanford and Connecticut are able to making use of intense defensive strain, and Brink and Nelson-Ododa will each have to remain affected person as they maneuver for open seems across the basket.

Standford, which enters the sport with the longest energetic successful streak of any Division I girls’s workforce — 24 consecutive victories — has the dimensions benefit. Even its guards are tall and may discover pictures in opposition to probably the most diligent defenders, as Texas found within the spherical of 8. As a result of Connecticut is simply as expert, the Cardinal might want to exploit no matter mismatches they will discover — even 6-foot-1 Haley Jones versus the 5-foot-11 Bueckers.

If Jones and Bueckers guard one another throughout Friday’s sport, it might make for among the best pairings of the event. Each are exceptionally expert as facilitators and scorers, making performs on nearly each a part of the court docket.

The Stanford and Connecticut coaches, Tara VanDerveer and Geno Auriemma, are the winningest and second-winningest coaches in girls’s school basketball historical past. The Huskies personal the collection by a big margin, however this sport will nonetheless provide one other alternative for 2 of the game’s most necessary coaches to compete on its greatest stage.