| Gender: | Women's |
| Year: | 2013 |
| Teams: | 64 |
| Champions: | Connecticut Huskies |
| Titlecount: | 8th |
| Champgamecount: | 8th |
| Champffcount: | 14th |
| Runnerup: | Louisville Cardinals |
| Gamecount: | 2nd |
| Runnerffcount: | 2nd |
| Finalfourarena: | New Orleans Arena |
| Finalfourcity: | New Orleans, Louisiana |
| Semifinal1: | California Golden Bears |
| Finalfourcount: | 1st |
| Semifinal2: | Notre Dame Fighting Irish |
| Finalfourcount2: | 5th |
| Coach: | Geno Auriemma |
| Coachcount: | 8th |
| Mop: | Breanna Stewart |
| Mopteam: | Connecticut |
The 2013 NCAA Division I women's basketball tournament was played from March 23 through April 9, 2013. Tennessee continued its streak of making every NCAA women's basketball tournament at 32 consecutive appearances. Kansas made the regional semifinals for the second year in a row as a double-digit seed, UConn made it into the Final Four for the sixth consecutive year, the longest such streak, and Louisville became the first team seeded lower than fourth in a region to advance to the championship game. For the first time in tournament history, the same four teams were #1 seeds as in the previous year.
Pending any changes to the format, a total of 64 teams will enter the 2019 tournament. 32 automatic bids shall be awarded to each program that wins their conference's tournament. The remaining 32 bids are "at-large", with selections extended by the NCAA Selection Committee. The tournament is split into four regional tournaments, and each regional has teams seeded from 1 to 16, with the committee ostensibly making every region as comparable to the others as possible. The top-seeded team in each region plays the #16 team, the #2 team plays the #15, etc. (meaning where the two seeds add up to 17, that team will be assigned to play another).
The Selection Committee will also seed the entire field from 1 to 64.
The format is similar to the Men's Tournament, except that there are 64 teams; this in turn means there is no "First Four" round. Thirty-one automatic bids for conference champions and 33 at-large bids were available.
The subregionals were played from March 23 through March 26.Sites chosen to host first- and second-round games in 2013 include:
First round and Second Rounds (Subregionals)
Regional semifinals and finals (Sweet Sixteen and Elite Eight)
The Regionals, named for the city rather than the region of geographic importance since 2005, held from March 30 to April 2, were at these sites:
A regional had been scheduled at Sun National Bank Center in Trenton, New Jersey. However, the NCAA moved the regional to Connecticut because of a recently passed state law allowing single-game betting for professional and collegiate games. NCAA rules do not allow tournament events to be held in states that allow single-game betting.
National semifinals and championship (Final Four and championship)
This is the third time that New Orleans has been selected as a women's Final Four location (previously, in 1991 and 2004) and second time at the Smoothie King Center (previously named Kiefer Lakefront UNO Arena); the 1991 Final Four was contested at the University of New Orleans' Lakefront Arena.
The following teams were automatic qualifiers for the 2013 NCAA field by virtue of winning their conference's tournament (except for the Ivy League, whose regular-season champion received the automatic bid).
| Conference | School | Last Appearance |
| |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| America East | 2012 | 2 | ||
| Atlantic 10 | 2000 | 12 | ||
| ACC | 2012 | 20 | ||
| Atlantic Sun | 2011 | 3 | ||
| Big 12 | Baylor | 2012 | 12 | |
| Big East | Notre Dame | 2012 | 20 | |
| Big Sky | 2011 | 20 | ||
| Big South | 2012 | 15 | ||
| Big Ten | 2012 | 23 | ||
| Big West | Never | 1 | ||
| Colonial | Delaware | 2012 | 4 | |
| C-USA | 2006 | 2 | ||
| Horizon | 2012 | 14 | ||
| Ivy League | 2012 | 4 | ||
| MAAC | 2012 | 9 | ||
| MAC | 1984 | 3 | ||
| MEAC | 2012 | 7 | ||
| Missouri Valley | Never | 1 | ||
| Mountain West | 2012 | 5 | ||
| Northeast | Never | 1 | ||
| Ohio Valley | 2012 | 3 | ||
| Pac-12 | 2012 | 27 | ||
| Patriot | 2012 | 3 | ||
| SEC | 2012 | 10 | ||
| Southern | 2010 | 11 | ||
| Southland | 2008 | 6 | ||
| SWAC | 2012 | 5 | ||
| Summit | 2012 | 5 | ||
| Sun Belt | 2012 | 16 | ||
| West Coast | Gonzaga | 2012 | 6 | |
| WAC | 1985 | 2 |
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Almost all first-round games were won by the higher-seeded team except for Creighton, the 10 seed who upset Syracuse 61–56. The top seed, Baylor won easily, by 42 points over Prairie View A&M. The only other game within single digit margin was 6 seed Oklahoma beating Central Michigan by five points.
In the second round, three of the four games followed expectations, with the only upset being the 5 seed Louisville over 4 seed Purdue. In the third round, 2 seed Tennessee beat 6 seed Oklahoma as expected, but Louisville upset top seeded Baylor in a result some have called one of the greatest upsets in women's basketball history. Baylor won the national championship in 2012, going undefeated during the season, and had returned every starter. While they lost one game in the current regular season, point guard Odyssey Sims was injured early in that game. The team had not lost a game in two years when playing at full strength. Louisville, the third best team in the Big East, hit sixteen of 25 three-point attempts, and held Griner to 14 points, after she had averaged 33 points in the first two games.
* – Denotes overtime period
Source[2]
| Conference | Bids | Record | Win % | R64 | R32 | S16 | E8 | F4 | CG | NC | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Big East | 8 | 16–7 | 0.696 | 8 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 1 | |
| Colonial | 1 | 2–1 | 0.667 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | |
| SEC | 7 | 14–7 | 0.667 | 7 | 7 | 4 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | |
| Pac-12 | 4 | 7–4 | 0.636 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | |
| ACC | 5 | 7–5 | 0.583 | 5 | 4 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | |
| Big Ten | 6 | 7–6 | 0.538 | 6 | 6 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | |
| Big 12 | 7 | 8–7 | 0.533 | 7 | 5 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | |
| Atlantic 10 | 2 | 1–2 | 0.333 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | |
| Missouri Valley | 2 | 1–2 | 0.333 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
ESPN had US television rights to all games during the tournament. For the first and second round, ESPN aired select games nationally on ESPN, ESPNU, or ESPNews. All other games were aired regionally on ESPN or ESPN2 and streamed online via ESPN3. Most of the nation got whip-a-round coverage during this time, which allowed ESPN to rotate between the games and focus the nation on the one that was the closest. The regional semifinals were split between ESPN and ESPN2, and ESPN aired the regional finals, national semifinals, and championship match.[3]
First & Second Rounds Saturday/Monday
Sweet Sixteen & Elite Eight Saturday/Monday
Final Four
First & Second Rounds Sunday/Tuesday
Sweet Sixteen & Elite Eight Sunday/Tuesday
Championship
Dial Global Sports had exclusive radio rights from the regional finals on through the championship.Regional Finals Monday[4]
Final Four[5]
Regional Finals Tuesday
Championship