Schools with the Most NCAA Women’s Basketball Championships

While it’s certainly impressive when an NCAA women’s basketball program makes itself a consistent March Madness presence, success is ultimately measured in championships. Since the first women’s tournament in 1982, just 16 different schools have won a championship. While some could be seen as flashes in the pan, the ones below are those that managed to back up their original success. These are the eight programs that have won the most NCAA women’s basketball championships.

The UConn Huskies remain the standard bearer for the women’s game. Their 11 titles are the most NCAA women’s basketball championships of any program in the country, as are their 22 Final Four appearances. Head coach Geno Auriemma, who completed his 38th season in Storrs in 2023, has led the school for all but four seasons it has spent at the Division I level. He made steady progress, taking the program to its first NCAA Tournament in 1989, at the end of his fourth season, and then to the Final Four in 1991, his sixth. His, and Connecticut’s, first national title came in 1995, capping off his 10th season with the program.

There are signs in recent years that the program’s stranglehold on the women’s game could be easing. UConn has not won a national title since 2016, and their loss in the regional semifinal to Ohio State in 2023 marked the first time the program had failed to reach the Final Four since 2007. That said, it could be a long time before anyone approaches their mark in terms of overall championships.

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For many years, Tennessee was Connecticut’s only rival for the throne of women’s college basketball. Though it’s been more than a decade since their last title in 2008, the Lady Vols have won eight national titles, more than any program other than UConn. 

Like Connecticut, Tennessee was guided to those titles by a legendary coach who became synonymous with the program, Pat Summitt. Summitt took over the program in 1981, just before the Lady Vols’ first season in Division I. She found success immediately, taking the team to the national semifinals of what was then known as the AIAW National Division I Basketball Championship. Tennessee reached the national championship game in her third season before breaking through for their first of eight titles in 1987. They won three straight titles from 1996 to 1998, capped off by an undefeated 39-0 squad in 1998 led by a pair of future Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame inductees in Chamique Holdsclaw and Tamika Catchings.

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It took almost two decades for the Baylor women’s basketball program to reach the NCAA Tournament, but since doing so for the first time in 2001, they’ve been mainstays ever since. They became NCAA women’s basketball champions for the first time in 2005, led by future WNBA All-Star Sophia Young, then reached the mountaintop again in 2012 as one of the best players the women’s game has ever seen, Brittney Griner, led the team to an undefeated 40-0 season. 

The program’s third and most recent championship came in 2019, a 37-1 squad that featured six future WNBA players, including future first round picks Kalani Brown, Lauren Cox, and NaLyssa Smith.

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Like a number of other schools on the list, the success of the Stanford women’s basketball program can largely be attributed to the good fortune of hiring and retaining a Hall of Fame head coach. In the case of the Cardinal, that coach is Tara VanDerveer.

VanDerveer arrived in Palo Alto in 1985, and the school joined the Pac-10 a year later. In 1990, the school became women’s NCAA basketball champions for the first time, capping the season with an 88-81 win over Auburn in the title game. Two years later, they were back on top, knocking off Western Kentucky in the final. There would be 10 empty trips to the Final Four for Stanford between their 1992 championship and their most recent one, when they posted a 31-2 record on the way to the 2021 national title.

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South Carolina was a heavy favorite to join Stanford and Baylor as three-time NCAA women’s basketball champions as they headed into the 2023 Final Four still undefeated. However, Iowa, behind a generational performance from guard Caitlin Clark, had other plans and dealt the Gamecocks their first and only loss of the season.

Nonetheless, head coach Dawn Staley has built South Carolina into one of the game’s preeminent powers. The program has reached the last 11 NCAA tournaments, culminating in five Final Fours and national titles in 2017 and 2022.

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Women’s basketball might never be the first sport that comes to mind when you think of the Fighting Irish, but the program has put itself among the elite of the sport in the 21st century. After knocking off fellow Indiana school Purdue in the 2001 title game behind star Ruth Riley, Notre Dame reeled off a 34-3 season en route to the 2018 national championship.

Like South Carolina, Notre Dame fans feel like they were tantalizingly close to being a three-time national champion. The year after their last title, their bid to repeat as champions was thwarted by Baylor, who won by one point after star guard Arike Ogunbowale missed a free throw with less than two seconds remaining in the 2019 title game.

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The sport’s first dominant program, the Bulldogs took part in the first 25 NCAA women’s basketball tournaments, highlighted by 10 Final Fours and two national championships in 1982 and 1988.

Recent years have been harder on Louisiana Tech. The program last made the Final Four in 2006 and has missed the last 11 NCAA tournaments. The Bulldogs haven’t sent a player to the WNBA since 2004.

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Along with the aforementioned Louisiana Tech squads, USC was a force in the early days of NCAA women’s basketball. In 1984, led by Hall of Famer Cheryl Miller, the Trojans became the first program to win back-to-back titles with a 72-61 win over Tennessee and future eight-time national champion Pat Summitt.

Also like Louisiana Tech, Southern Cal has found it difficult to maintain their success in recent years. The program has made the NCAA tournament just four times in the last 26 years, never reaching the Sweet 16. Only one Trojan has been selected in the first round of the WNBA Draft since 2004.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 10th, 2023 at 2:02 pm and is filed under Top 10 Lists. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.