The NCAA announced Feb. 26 that the UW Oshkosh women’s basketball team will host a regional pod at the Kolf Sports Center for the NCAA Division III women’s basketball tournament.
The Titans (22-5) will take on Webster University (Missouri) (27-0) in the first round of the tournament March 1 with tipoff at 7:30 p.m.
UWO head coach Brad Fischer said it’s a huge accomplishment for the team to make the NCAA tournament for the sixth straight season.
“You know, we started out 4-2 or something like that and lost our first conference game so we had moments this year where things went the other way,” Fischer said. “I think everyone’s done a great job responding to the challenge of the next day and I think we got better and better as the year went on. For us to win the league, Whitewater and Stout returned most of their whole team from last year, so for us to win the league, make it to the tournament and now host the first two rounds of the NCAA tournament is huge.”
UWO, which won the Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference regular season title with a 12-2 record, enters the first-round matchup coming off a 77-65 loss to UW-Stout in the WIAC tournament championship game. Oshkosh earned an at-large bid into the NCAA tournament by the selection committee.
The Titans, ranked No. 18 in the nation by d3hoops.com, will be led by senior guard Kennedy Osterman, who averages 11.3 points per game and shoots 43.5% from the field and 38.9% from behind the arc. Osterman shoots a WIAC-best 90.6% from the foul line and averages 4.4 rebounds and 2.3 steals per game.
Webster, ranked No. 25 in the nation by d3hoops.com, earned its eighth NCAA tournament bid after the Gorloks won their third-straight St. Louis Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (SLIAC) tournament title by taking down Westminster (Missouri) 71-56 Feb. 24.
The Gorloks, which also won the SLIAC regular season title, will be led by graduate student Julie Baudendistel, who averages 16.3 points per game and shoots 49.3% from the floor.
The first game of the day will feature Gustavus Adolphus College (Minnesota) (25-2) and Trine University (Indiana) (21-7) in a first round matchup.
The Gusties, ranked No. 5 in the nation by d3hoops.com, earned an automatic bid into the tournament after taking down Concordia College (Minnesota) 66-38 in the Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (MIAC) tournament championship game. Gustavus Adolphus went 19-1 in conference play to claim the MIAC regular season crown.
The Gusties will be led by senior guards Emma Kniefel and Syd Hauger, who both average 11.7 points per game. Kniefel grabs an average of four rebounds a game and dishes out 3.4 assists per game. Hauger shoots 65.2% from the floor and 53.5% from 3-point range.
Trine enters the tournament after upsetting No. 9 Hope University (Michigan) 63-59 to win the Michigan Intercollegiate Athletic Association (MIAA) tournament. The Thunder finished third in the MIAA regular season standings with a 12-4 record.
Junior guard Sydney Wagner will lead the Thunder into the NCAA tournament after averaging 14.7 points and 5.7 points per game in the regular season. Wagner shoots 44% from the field and averages 2.7 steals per game.
Fischer said that the Oshkosh pod features some really tough teams.
“I know obviously we had some time to think about who might be here and we got an undefeated team in the first round, which normally when you host, you don’t have that good of a team come in here,” Fischer said. “Webster is really good and Gustavus is really good and Trine, we’re actually scheduled to play next year so we’ve paid close attention to them. Trine just beat Hope (University) in Hope’s gym so usually when you host you get a little help in the bracket and I think we have a really difficult bracket this weekend.”
The winners of games played on March 1 will play each other in the second round of the tournament at the Kolf Sports Center at 7 p.m. March 2.
