In a battle between women's college basketball's modern dynasties, South Carolina pulled a minor shocker and defeated UConn -- which had been favored for the national championship all season -- to advance to the finals. That huge result has the Gamecocks now favored to win the program's fourth title.
South Carolina is a 3.5-point favorite over UCLA in the 2026 national championship game, with -185 odds to win the game straight up against the Bruins' +154. The total for the game sits at 131.5, even as both national semifinal contests failed to exceed 110 points. Early wagering at DraftKings has a majority of bets and handle backing the Gamecocks, both on the spread and the moneyline.
UCLA showed the longest odds to win the title coming into the Final Four at +600, just behind Texas -- whom they defeated Friday -- and South Carolina at +550. UConn was -160 going into the national semifinals, which were actually its longest odds since the calendar flipped to 2026.
Because all of those teams were the favorites most of the season, none of them were going to cause much trouble for sportsbooks, with Circa Sports risk manager Dominick DeBonis saying before the Final Four that the book was "guaranteed to have a positive team in the national championship game." That said, this exact national championship game was not the ideal scenario for sportsbooks, with South Carolina attracting the most future tickets at BetMGM and UCLA considered to be the largest remaining liability at the book.
With UConn's elimination, four of the last five odds-on favorites coming into the tournament have now ultimately failed to win it all. The only one to win the national championship over that period was South Carolina in 2024 (-140).
(1) South Carolina Gamecocks -3.5
(1) UCLA Bruins
Phoenix, 3:30 p.m. ET
Money line:
South Carolina Gamecocks -185
UCLA Bruins +154
Total: 131.5
South Carolina: 31-3, 15-1 in SEC play
UCLA: 31-1, 18-0 in Big Ten play
BPI projection: South Carolina by 0.7 points, straight up 52.5% of the time