Notre Dame Receives No. 3 Seed, Will Host First And Second Round NCAA Tournament Games

Notre Dame women’s basketball will host first and second round NCAA Tournament games for the third consecutive year. The Fighting Irish are the No. 3 seed in the Birmingham 3 Region of this year’s NCAA Tournament. The entire field was announced Sunday Night.

The Irish, who are making the program’s 30th trip to the NCAA Tournament, will play No. 14 seed Stephen F. Austin this Friday at Purcell Pavilion in the first round of the tournament. No. 6 seed Michigan will play the winner of the No. 11 seed play-in game between Iowa State and Princeton.

The play-in game will take place on Wednesday, March 19 and Purcell Pavillion (all times TBD). The winners of those two games will meet in the second round of the tournament at Purcell on Sunday. The winner of that game will then advance to the Sweet 16 in Birmingham, AL.

The South Bend first and second round pod is matched up with the Ft. Worth, Texas pod. The first-round games there are No. 2 seed TCU vs No. 15 seed Fairleigh Dickinson and No. 7 seed Louisville vs No. 10 Nebraska. The Irish suffered their first loss of the season to TCU in the Cayman Islands in November.

Notre Dame has advanced to the NCAA Tournament’s Sweet 16 on 20 occasions in the history of the program. The Irish have advanced that far in each of the last three seasons under fifth year head coach Niele Ivey, who was a member of the first four Sweet 16 teams in program history when she played for Hall of Fame head coach Muffet McGraw.

Texas in the No. 1 seed in Notre Dame’s Birmingham 3 region. The Irish beat the Longhorns 80-70 in overtime in December. UCLA is the No. 1 overall seed. The other two No. 1 seeds are South Carolina and Southern Cal. The other three No. 2 seeds are NC State, Duke and UConn. The other No. 3 seeds are LSU, North Carolina and Oklahoma.

The Irish have wins over No. 1 seeds Texas and USC as well as No. 2 seeds Duke and UConn this season. The Irish were also a No. 2 seed last year. They were a No. 3 seed in 2023 and a No. 5 seed in 2022.