2002 and 2010. Qualification and selection Automatic qualifiers The following teams automatically qualified for the 2021 NCAA field by virtue of winning their conference's tournament. Tournament seeds Bracket All times are listed as Central Daylight Time (UTC−5) * – Denotes overtime period Alamo regional – San Antonio, Texas * – Denotes overtime period Alamo regional final HemisFair regional – San Antonio, Texas * – Denotes overtime period HemisFair regional final Mercado regional – San Antonio, Texas * – Denotes overtime period Mercado regional final River Walk regional – San Antonio, Texas * – Denotes overtime period River Walk regional final Final Four During the Final Four round, Stanford, the winner of the Alamo Regional defeated South Carolina, the winner of the HemisFair Regional. Arizona, the winner of the Mercado Regional defeated UConn, the winner of the River Walk Regional. In the championship game, Stanford defeated Arizona by a score of 54–53 to take the 2021 title. Alamodome – San Antonio, Texas National semifinals National championship Final Four all-tournament team Haley Jones (MOP), Stanford Lexie Hull, Stanford Aari McDonald, Arizona Zia Cooke, South Carolina Paige Bueckers, UConn Record by conference The R64, R32, S16, E8, F4, CG, and NC columns indicate how many teams from each conference were in the round of 64 (first round), round of 32 (second round), Sweet 16, Elite Eight, Final Four, championship game, and national champion, respectively. The American, America East, Atlantic 10, Atlantic Sun, Big Sky, Big South, Big West, Conference USA, Colonial, Horizon, MAAC, MEAC, Mountain West, Northeast, Ohio Valley, Patriot, Southern, Southland, Sun Belt, SWAC, and WAC conferences each had one representative that was eliminated in the first round. Media coverage Television ESPN served as broadcaster of the tournament, as part of its multi-year deal to broadcast NCAA national championships. Following a similar broadcast arrangement to the men's tournament under the CBS/Turner consortium, ESPN announced that all games in the tournament would be televised nationally in their entirety by either ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, or, for the first time, ABC (marking the first women's tournament to include coverage on broadcast television since 1995), rather than use a mix of regional broadcasts, streaming, and "whiparound" feeds. Kerry Callahan became the first woman to serve as producer for ESPN's coverage of the Women's Final Four. Studio host and analysts Maria Taylor (Host) (First, Second rounds, Regionals, Final Four, and National championship game) Kelsey Riggs (Host) (first