Women's March Madness: Texas, Minnesota advance to Sweet 16
What happened
Sunday's second round of the 2026 Women's NCAA Tournament sent multiple teams to the Sweet 16. No. 1 Texas routed No. 8 Oregon 100-58, and Minnesota edged Mississippi 65-63 on a buzzer-beater to reach its first Sweet 16 in 21 years.
How it was covered
ESPN anchored its coverage on individual star performances: Madison Booker's "career-high 40 points in a dazzling display of shotmaking" for Texas, and Amaya Battle's "tiebreaking jump shot with 0.7 seconds left" for Minnesota. Yahoo Sports zoomed out to the conference level, framing the day around the Big Ten "setting its conference record for most teams in the Sweet Sixteen." CBS Sports pivoted entirely to a post-elimination angle, focusing on Iowa State's Audi Crooks and her uncertain WNBA Draft future after a first-round exit.
What one side told you that the other didn't
CBS Sports was the only outlet to cover a losing team's story, giving space to Crooks' uncertain future — a human-interest angle absent from ESPN's and Yahoo's results-focused coverage. Yahoo Sports' Big Ten conference record framing offered structural context that ESPN's game-by-game recaps didn't provide.
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