The women’s 2025 NCAA Tournament was a setback for Cinderellas. Is there hope?
Two years ago, as the universe was just falling in love with Caitlin Clark, we trained our statistical model, Slingshot, on the women’s NCAA Tournament for the first time. And an obsession of a different kind set Slingshot’s spreadsheets aflutter. (Or maybe it was our heartstrings — our model doesn’t vibrate.)AdvertisementWe found multiple teams playing the same kinds of high-risk/high-reward styles characteristic of past Cinderellas on the men’s side — and a bunch of them won! In 2023, three squads seeded 11th or lower, including Florida Gulf Coast, Slingshot’s favorite giant-killer, pulled off first-round upsets. Two No. 1 seeds fell in the second round. A No. 3 seed, the lowest ever, won the national title. That team (LSU) was the fifth different champion in the past five tournaments. And like a weatherman taking credit for sunshine, we were happy to […]
