ON TODAY'S SCORECARD
Running It Back

South Carolina and Texas took care of business on Monday night, winning their Elite Eight matchups to set up a chalky — and familiar — Women’s Final Four comprising entirely No. 1 seeds for just the fifth time ever.

• South Carolina 78, TCU 52: The Gamecocks pulled away in the fourth quarter to eliminate the Horned Frogs, who fell one win short of their first Final Four for the second year in a row.

• Texas 77, Michigan 41: The Longhorns annihilated the Wolverines behind a balanced offense (four players scored in double digits) and a stifling defense that held Michigan to 23% shooting.

This year's Final Four quartet of South Carolina, Texas, UConn and UCLA are the same four teams that made it last year. That's only happened once before in NCAA women's tournament history, when Tennessee, Georgia, UConn and Stanford made the Final Four in 1995 and 1996.

One difference this year, though, is the crevasse between these four teams and the rest of the field. They've won every tournament game so far by at least 10 points, and their average margin of victory last round — 23 points — was the largest ever in the Elite Eight.

"It's not that these four are entitled to reach the final weekend," said Yahoo Sports' Cassandra Negley. "It's that we deserve to see which one is the best after the year they've had — and the year the others haven't."

Last four standing: Let's meet the semifinalists…

• UConn: The defending champions have won 54 consecutive games and have reached 17 of the last 18 Final Fours, which is truly unbelievable. This year has been another masterclass by Geno Auriemma, who's taken the Huskies to 25 Final Fours in 41 seasons at the helm.

• UCLA: Last year's move to the Big Ten has agreed with the Bruins, who'd never made the Final Four before the switch and have now made two straight appearances. Now, riding a 29-game win streak, they'll try to become the conference's first national champion since Purdue in 1999.

• South Carolina: No program can touch UConn's all-time résumé, but even the Huskies can't match what the Gamecocks have done in the past decade, winning three titles since 2017 and reaching the last six Final Fours.

• Texas: Over the last six years, the Longhorns have won 14 NCAA titles in eight different sports (3x men's swimming, 3x women's rowing, 2x women's tennis, 2x women's volleyball, men's golf, men's indoor track, women's outdoor track, softball). Can Vic Schaefer's squad add to that tally?

Flashback: A year ago, UConn crushed UCLA and South Carolina crushed Texas in the Final Four, then the Huskies blew out the Gamecocks in the grand finale. The teams are the same this time around, but the matchups are different, with UCLA facing Texas and UConn facing South Carolina in a title game rematch.

Title odds: UConn is heavily favored to cut down the nets again (-235 at BetMGM), followed by UCLA (+550), Texas (+600) and South Carolina (+750).

GOLDEN STATE over San Antonio by 10

No danger of missing the playoffs for the Warriors. Sure. But sitting in the No. 10 spot, just two games behind the No. 8 seed, the Golden State Warriors are still stuck in Play-In purgatory — and that’s a place they desperately want to escape.

Tonight is a calculated gamble. The Warriors come in riding a strong trend: 17-8 SU and 18-7 ATS when avenging a loss of 16 points or fewer this season. That’s more than a nugget — it’s a serious edge. On the other side, the San Antonio Spurs are scorching hot, going 25-2 in their last 27 games. But streaks like that carry a hidden cost, namely a tariff. Meanwhile, Steve Kerr is a sharp 6-2 ATS against teams coming off a win when his Warriors are under .500.

This home dog is alive tonight.

From this week’s PLAYBOOK NBA Only Hoops Newsletter

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Analytics have permeated nearly every aspect of Major League Baseball. It was only a matter of time before that extended to the very ballparks hosting the games.

Home improvement: The Royals played their first game at the new-look Kauffman Stadium on Monday, debuting their home ballpark after moving the majority of the outfield fence in by 10 feet, and lowering it by 18 inches, this offseason in an effort to create a more hitter-friendly environment.

• It's not unusual for a team to modify its ballpark dimensions; the Orioles and Mets both made similar changes to their outfield walls in recent years.

• But Kansas City's move is unique because it's specifically about optimizing their current roster's performance — a fascinating wrinkle that could signal the start of a new league-wide trend.

A targeted approach: Royals assistant GM Daniel Mack, who has a Ph.D. in computer science, was tasked with analyzing the team's strengths and weaknesses to come up with new outfield dimensions that would make a meaningful difference, notes Sportico.

• Mack found that Kansas City's hitters were narrowly missing a lot of home runs while their pitchers were surrendering far fewer fly balls than the average team. So he recommended a change that would positively impact the offense more than it negatively impacted their staff.

• The team believes the adjustment will add 1.5 wins this season, while also giving them more roster-building flexibility moving forward — no longer having to focus on acquiring contact hitters to take advantage of what was the league's second-largest outfield.

Will more teams follow KC's lead? There's technically nothing stopping them, as MLB's 191-page rule book is pretty lenient regarding outfield dimensions.