Photo: Andy Lyons / Getty Images Sport / Getty Images
LOS ANGELES (CNS) - UCLA will begin play in the NCAA women's basketball tournament Friday and USC Saturday, both as No. 1 seeds in their regions.
The Bruins (30-2) are the top overall seed for the first time. They will play a first-round Regional 1 game at 7 p.m. Friday at Pauley Pavilion against the winner of Wednesday's 6 p.m. UC San Diego-Southern First Four game, which will also be played at Pauley Pavilion.
Friday's game will be televised by ESPN and Wednesday's by ESPNU.
UCLA has never won an NCAA women's basketball championship, although the team led by Basketball Hall of Famer Ann Meyers won the 1978 Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women championship, four years before the NCAA began conducting a women's basketball tournament.
The Bruins' furthest progression in the NCAA tournament were Elite Eight appearances in 1999 and 2018.
UCLA's only losses this season were to USC, which it avenged in Big Ten Conference Tournament final March 9.
USC (28-3) is the No. 1 seed in Regional 4 and will play 16th-seeded UNC Greensboro (25-6) in a first-round game at the Galen Center at noon Saturday which will be televised by ABC.
The Spartans qualified for the NCAA Tournament by winning the Southern Conference Tournament, defeating Chattanooga, 64-57, in overtime March 9 in the final. UNC Greensboro also won the regular-season title.
The Trojans have won NCAA women's basketball championship in 1983 and 1984, but have not reached the Final Four since 1986, Hall of Famer Cheryl Miller's final season.