Two Texas programs have survived the first weekend of the NCAA Women's Basketball Tournament, with the Baylor Bears and Texas Longhorns advancing to this year's Sweet 16. Let's look at how the teams got here and what their outlook is going forward.

Baylor Bears

Baylor, the No. 5 seed in the Portland Region, soundly defeated a feisty Vanderbilt team in the first round, winning 80-63. There was a point in the second quarter where it looked like the Bears offense was going to stall out enough to let the Commodores back into the game, but the team steadied itself from there, scoring 28 points in the third quarter to essentially put the game away. I thought Sacha Washington was going to give Baylor a lot of trouble, but the team held her to eight points.

In the second round, the team faced No. 4 seed Virginia Tech, which was without its best player, Liz Kitley. Still, the Hokies put up a fight, with Baylor ultimately winning 75-72. Jada Walker was huge in that game, scoring the team's final 10 points in the fourth quarter. Overall, Walker scored 28 points on 9-for-16 shooting in the victory. She was able to consistently find her spots and made big shot after big shot, including a huge layup to really close things out.

Up next for the Bears is a Sweet 16 matchup with No. 1 seed USC, a game that should be more winnable than you might think.

Sure, the Trojans have JuJu Watkins, the best player on the floor, and having the best player definitely matters—we just saw how not having the best player cost Virginia Tech.

However, these teams are closer than the seeding might suggest. USC is 10th in the NET, while Baylor isn't far behind at 18th. Her Hoop Stats has USC as just a 1.6-point favorite on a neutral floor, with Baylor given a 44.6 percent chance to win.

One thing that works in Baylor's favor is that USC has shown some issues on defense this season. The Trojans are 71st in the country in defensive rating and 101st overall in scoring defense. If Jada Walker's cooking like she was in the second round, Baylor has a chance to win this one in a shootout.

One thing Baylor needs to do is limit the threes. USC shoots 36.0 percent from deep, the 24th-best mark in the country, but the Bears have some stellar 3-point defense. Opposing teams shoot just 26.2 percent from behind the arc against Baylor, the seventh-best mark in the country. Pressure the shooters and the Bears will have a fighting chance here.

Texas Longhorns

While Baylor reaching the Sweet 16 was a bit of an upset, Texas is right where it's supposed to be. The No. 1 seed in the Portland 4 region took down Drexel 82-42 in the first round, then had a little more trouble in the second round, beating Alabama 65-54.

Head coach Vic Schaefer commended his defense after the victory for holding a team that averaged 76 points per game in the SEC to just 54, but noted that Texas "missed a ton of layups and bunnies throughout the course of the game." That's something that the Longhorns have to get cleaned up. Maybe they can afford to win a defensive battle against Gonzaga, but beating Stanford that way in a hypothetical Elite 8 matchup could be a different story.

One thing Texas has going for it more than any other team in the country is frontcourt depth. When DeYona Gaston is your sixth player and Amina Muhammad is around to give you a few good minutes, that's just a huge advantage. It gives the team the luxury of knowing that if a frontcourt player struggles or gets into foul trouble, there's a capable player who can sub in.

Up next is Gonzaga. The Bulldogs are a really good team, but there are reasons to think that the Longhorns should have relatively few issues against them. The team is second in the country in offensive rating, but a lot of that comes from playing in the WCC, where the team consistently put up big point totals. In six regular season games against power conference opponents, the Bulldogs surpassed their 80.9 points per game scoring average just twice, and one of those games saw them score exactly 0.1 points more than that. The outlier there was a shocking 96-78 win over Stanford, but Stanford's Cameron Brink played just 11 minutes because of illness in that one.

Speaking of Stanford, that's likely who the team would face in the Elite 8. The Cardinal are coming off an overtime win over Iowa State which saw Brink get into foul trouble. The Cyclones kept that one close because they just couldn't stop hitting threes, going 12-for-19 from deep. It was a great game, but not necessarily one that provides Texas with a game plan for how to beat Stanford.

That's because Texas ranks almost dead last in Division I in 3-point volume. The team shoots 36.5 percent from deep, but just 14.6 percent of its points come from behind the arc, which ranks 356th of 360 teams. This program has to beat Stanford with its defense, which is going to be tough. Sure, Texas is seventh in the country in defensive rating, but Stanford's fifth in offensive rating and can put up points in a hurry.

... Rice Owls?

No, the Rice Owls won't be playing basketball this weekend, but their first-round loss to LSU deserves a mention here. The 14-seed Owls outplayed defending champion LSU for much of the game before the Tigers pulled away late. The Owls forced 24 turnovers in the game, while LSU made just 21 field goals. The free throw disparity was the big edge for LSU, as the team shot 31 of them. Rice shot just eight.

The performance was especially impressive because Rice wasn't supposed to be here. The Owls were one of five teams tied for sixth in the conference regular standings and their 15 losses were the most for the program since 2016. But Rice got hot in the AAC Tournament, which gave the Owls the chance to play under the bright lights and almost upset Kim Mulkey's LSU squad.