They come from four states, representing four big-school conferences. They are Huskies and Cardinals and Gamecocks and Cardinal (with an iconic tree thrown in for good measure).
The teams arriving here for the 2022 Women's Final Four in downtown Minneapolis boast impressive resumes with different backgrounds. They strive for one common goal Sunday evening when the confetti drops: win.
No. 1 seeds South Carolina, Louisville and Stanford will be joined by No. 2 seed Connecticut for this week's event. Here's a closer look at the four teams and their fan bases coming to town to cheer the roof off Target Center.
South Carolina Gamecocks
33-2 • No. 1 seed from Greensboro Regional
In 14 years under coach Dawn Staley, the South Carolina women's basketball team has gone from struggling to make its way in the SEC Conference, to a perennial power, to a team that has played with a target on its back from the start of this season until now.
South Carolina has ranked No. 1 in the country since the preseason poll and is headed to its second consecutive Final Four.
"I mean, here it is," coach Dawn Staley said. "We're going to face whatever music that's playing."
South Carolina had managed two winning conference records in the SEC and two NCAA appearances in 17 seasons when Staley took over in 2008.
In Staley's fourth season, South Carolina won 25 games and returned to the NCAA tournament, making the sweet 16. It was the start of 11 straight trips which included seven trips to the Sweet 16, three trips to the Final Four and a championship in 2017.
In the process, Staley and her teams have built a tradition. South Carolina has gone 364-105 under Staley, won six SEC titles, never finishing lower than a tie for second since the start of the 2013-14 season.
South Carolina isn't done, not yet. The goal is what it has become every year of late – win a title, with Aliyah Boston playing in the post in the great tradition of A'ja Wilson. Boston was part of the team that came up just short in a semifinal loss to Stanford last year. Now she's back, and ready for more.
"It's exciting,'' she said. "But we just said in the locker room we still have unfinished business, and we still have two more games to play."
About the fan base
Given South Carolina's success, it should come as no surprise the fans have come to watch what Staley has built.
This season the Gamecocks drew 196,286 fans to 16 home games, an average of better than 12,267 fans per game. The South Carolina women have led the nation in attendance eight years running. "We've been in a really long marriage with our fans," Staley said during their recent run. "It's been great, because it organically happened." Indeed, the fan base is called "Fams,'' a combination of the words fans and family. And this family travels. You'll see a lot of folks clad in garnet and black this weekend.
KENT YOUNGBLOOD
Louisville Cardinals
29-4 • No. 1 seed from Wichita Regional
The University of Louisville is a basketball school, a designation maintained recently by the strength of the women's program that is hoping to cement itself among the sport's elite with an elusive national title.
The Cardinals have been knocking on the door for much of the past 15 years under head coach Jeff Walz, who is overseeing his fourth Final Four team, vying for his third-ever championship game appearance and that first crown.
Louisville has risen to prominence in Walz's tenure, reaching the first Sweet Sixteen in his initial season in 2007-08. A year later, the program's first NCAA title game was thwarted by the standard-bearer UConn. Star Cardinals forward Angel McCoughtry, who now plays for the Lynx, and her teammates ran into a Huskies buzzsaw led by Tina Charles and Maya Moore in the 76-54 loss.
Four years later, another Cardinals run was dashed in a 2013 title game loss, 93-60, to U-Conn and phenomenal freshman Breanna Stewart.
"You could put those two UConn teams in probably the top five best women's basketball teams ever," Walz said. "Not just at UConn, I'm talking ever."
Cardinals basketball has reached a new level the past five years. The rise of guard Asia Durr, the two-time ACC Player of the Year in 2018 and 2019, ushered in a blue-blood consistency of winning — and a painful overtime loss to Mississippi State in 2018's Final Four.
Louisville (29-4) hasn't lost more than four games in this five-year span.
With a star scorer in sophomore guard Hailey Van Lith and a strong supporting cast led by senior forward Emily Engstler, they're again ready to chase the elusive title.
"Our thing is, we have to win that last game," Walz said. "That's what it all comes down to. For people to really think we're there, we have to win the national championship."
About the fan base
Red-and-black clad Louisville fans will descend this week on Minneapolis, where you'll hear the "C-A-R-D-S, CARDS!" chant that travels well with the Cardinals faithful. Many made the 700-mile trek from Louisville to the Wichita regional to cheer their fourth run to a Final Four.
They'll cover roughly the same distance to the Target Center, hoping this is the year for their first national title. A teeth-baring mascot, Louie the Cardinal, fronts an award-winning spirit squad; Louisville's all-female team has seven straight titles in National Cheerleaders Association competitions.
ANDREW KRAMMER
Stanford Cardinal
32-3 • No. 1 seed from Spokane regional
Stanford women's basketball has been the program to beat on the West Coast for decades. And it's sustained that national prominence behind the leadership of Tara VanDerveer, the all-time leader in wins in Division I women's history.
VanDerveer's building of the Cardinal mirrors that of Duke's Mike Krzyzewski, who is the only men's or women's coach with more career victories (1,202 to 1,156).
After taking over at Stanford in 1985, VanDerveer finished 27-29 in her first two seasons before starting the program's streak of 34 consecutive NCAA tournament appearances that's still going today.
The Cardinal had only reached the NCAA tournament once before she arrived, but it has become a regular in March with 13 Final Fours and three national titles under VanDerveer, including last season.
After reaching the Final Four in Minneapolis in 1995, VanDerveer would take a leave of absence the following season to coach the U.S. Olympic team, which won a gold medal in the Olympics in Atlanta.
For the 1995-96 season, VanDerveer was replaced temporarily by her assistants Amy Tucker and Marianne Stanley, who teamed up to coach the Cardinal to their fifth Final Four.
The 2021 national championship was Stanford's first since it won two titles in three seasons in 1990 and 1992. The perennial Pac-12 power returned eight of its top nine players from last season's 31-2 team, including All-Americas Haley Jones and Cameron Brink.
"I am absolutely thrilled that we're going to the Final Four," VanDerveer, 68, said after beating Texas in the Elite Eight on Sunday. "We've had this on our radar all year. We've never really talked about going to the Final Four. We've talked about it but now we're really going. It does not get old."
About the fan base
One of the most distinct mascots in college sports is actually not an official mascot at all. Stanford's Tree, seen strutting around the sidelines at Cardinal games, is actually the mascot for the Stanford marching band. But it represents the university and city of Palo Alto, which both have redwood tree logos.
Stanford fans all over Minneapolis for Final Four week will be dressed in a color that resembles red, but it's actually Cardinal. That's also the team name. One thing that easily bugs Stanford faithful is referring to them as "Cardinals" fans, but it's singular. Not the bird but the color.
MARCUS FULLER
Connecticut Huskies
29-5 • No. 2 seed from Bridgeport regional
Take it from Geno Auriemma: Getting to the Final Four is really, really hard. The UConn coach understands, though, if it seems like that statement doesn't apply to the Huskies.
"Some years, we've made it look not so difficult,'' Auriemma admitted. "We had a stretch where people thought it was preordained.''
No wonder. This week, the dynasty based in Storrs, Conn., is making its 14th consecutive appearance at the Final Four, an NCAA record. The Huskies own 11 NCAA championships, the most in history, and have played in the Final Four 22 times. Their 129-21 mark in the NCAA tournament also is a record.
UConn's roster over the past 30 years is a pageant of superstars, each taking the game to new heights. The program has won 12 AP National Player of the Year awards, from the first (Rebecca Lobo, 1995) to the most recent (Paige Bueckers, 2021). In between are legends such as Sue Bird, Diana Taurasi, Maya Moore and Breanna Stewart.
The Huskies won their first NCAA championship at Target Center in 1995. They captured four consecutive titles from 2013-16 — another record — and 10 of their titles came in a 17-year span from 2000-2016. During seven seasons in the American Athletic Conference, UConn did not lose a league game, going 139-0. In 2020, it rejoined the Big East, where it has added to its collection of 28 regular-season conference titles and 27 conference tournament championships.
All that success has come under Auriemma, who became head coach in 1985. During his tenure, UConn has amassed the two longest win streaks in NCAA history, winning 111 in a row from 2014-17 and 90 in a row from 2008-2010. His record over 37 seasons at UConn is 1,148-149.
About the fan base
UConn, which averaged 8,445 for home attendance this season, has multiple incarnations of its beloved Husky mascot, and all answer to the same name: Jonathan.
The one coming to Minneapolis wears a costume, stands on two legs and cheers. There's also a canine Jonathan, a handsome black-and-white Siberian husky, and a large bronze Jonathan standing watch in front of UConn's basketball arena, Gampel Pavilion. The mascot is named for Jonathan Trumbull, who served as governor of Connecticut in its final years as a colony and first years as a state.
RACHEL BLOUNT
