NAIA WOMEN'S BASKETBALL NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP
Sioux Center, Iowa | De Witt Gymnasium
Friday's Games (Round of 64)
3:30 p.m. – (16) Simpson (Calif.) at (1) Dordt (Iowa)
5:30 p.m. – (9) Southern Oregon vs. (8) Rocky Mountain (Mont.)
Saturday's Game (Round of 32)
1 p.m. – Round of 64 Winners

LIVE STREAM | LIVE STATS | BRACKET

Southern Oregon has the speed and an elite defense. Rocky Mountain (Mont.) has the size and a top-tier offense. The assigned seeds suggest a coin flip, and the contrast of styles and personnel should make for one of the more satisfying matchups on the first day of NAIA Women's Basketball National Tournament.

Winners of four consecutive first-round games, the No. 9-seeded Raiders (19-10 overall) play their fifth in as many seasons under coach Carlotta Kloppenburg-Pruitt against the No. 8-seeded Battlin' Bears (20-9) at 5:30 p.m. PDT Friday. The teams' first meeting in 18 years will take place at De Witt Gymnasium in Sioux Center, Iowa, home of the defending national champion Dordt Defenders, who will play the winner in the Round of 32 barring the biggest upset in tournament history.

Rocky got through an arduous Frontier Conference at 17-5 behind a pair of star sophomores: 5-foot-11 guard Paige Wasson, a 20-point-per-game scorer, and 6-foot-5 forward Isabelle Heggem, the FC Defensive Player of the Year. The Bears were a perfect 12-0 at home but vulnerable elsewhere, having fallen in the quarterfinals of the FC Tournament to Montana State-Northern (which did not qualify for the national playoffs) on a neutral court in their most recent outing. They're scoring at a rate of 104 points per 100 possessions, while the Raiders are giving up just 76.

IF THEY ADVANCE: Top-seeded Dordt is the host of the four-team Cramer Quadrant pod and faces No. 16-seeded Simpson (Calif.) in a first-round game preceding the SOU-Rocky matchup. The winners will experience a tight turnaround, playing in the Round of 32 at 1 p.m. PDT Saturday for a trip to the 16-team final site in Sioux City, Iowa, where the last four rounds of the tournament are scheduled for March 19-24. The Defenders (29-2) have won back-to-back NAIA championships – they're 99-6 combined since the start of the 2023-24 season – and have three of their top players back from last year's title team, including All-America point guard Macy Sievers, the Great Plains Athletic Conference Player of the Year. They'd won 21 consecutive games before losing to No. 9-ranked Dakota Wesleyan (S.D.), 84-76, in the GPAC Tournament championship game.
 
(8) ROCKY MOUNTAIN (20-9)
Billings, Mont. | Frontier Conference (17-5, 3rd)
Final NAIA Top 25: No. 22
Offensive Rating: 23rd (104 points/100 possessions)
Defensive Rating: 146th (91 points allowed/100 possessions)
Net Rating: 57th (+13 points/100 possessions)
Last 10 Games: 7-3

• Wes Keller, Rocky's head coach since 2014-15, has the Bears in the tournament for the eighth time in the last nine full seasons. They were eliminated in last year's first round as a No. 9 seed, picked up their last tourney win in 2023 as a No. 11 seed, and made their deepest-ever run to the quarterfinals in 2022 as a No. 2 seed.
• The Bears ended the regular season on a five-game winning streak in which they averaged 86.8 points. Wasson, an All-Frontier selection, has averaged 27.8 over her last four outings and put up at least 23 field-goal attempts in each of her last three, but she's more than just a high-volume player. The sophomore is hitting at 48% from the field, 38% from 3-point range (where she gets more than half of her shots), and 83% at the free-throw line while collecting 7.8 rebounds per game.
• Wasson is far from the only matchup problem. The Bears have a loaded frontcourt in the aforementioned Heggem (14.0 points, 11.7 rebounds, 2.7 blocks) at 6-5 and Brenna Linse (15.2 points, 6.1 rebounds) at 6-1. Heggem has registered double-doubles in five straight games and 16 overall, while Linse finishes at a 60% clip inside. They have another sharpshooter to spread the floor in Angelina Cavanaugh, who is 63-of-140 (45%) from downtown this season.
• One of the Bears' greatest weakness plays into SOU's hands. They've committed over 100 more turnovers (399) than they've forced (295), and the Raiders turn opponents over more times per game (21.4) than any team Rocky faced in the Frontier.

(9) SOUTHERN OREGON (19-10)
Ashland, Ore. | Cascade Conference (14-6, T-5th)
Final NAIA Top 25: Receiving Votes (No. 41)
Offensive Rating: 85th (92 points/100 possessions)
Defensive Rating: 14th (76 points allowed/100 possessions)
Net Rating: 47th (+16 points/100 possessions)
Last 10 Games: 6-4

• With Kloppenburg-Pruitt at the helm, the Raiders have yet to lose a first-round game and advanced to the final site last year for the first time since the NAIA's two divisions merged in 2020, eventually reaching the national quarterfinals. Overall in postseason play (including conference tournaments), Kloppenburg-Pruitt's teams are 16-6 and have limited opponents to an average of 56.5 points.
• Against teams in the 64-team bracket, the Raiders went 6-8. All of the losses were against teams seeded No. 7 or better.
• Senior guard Bridgette McIntyre was selected to the All-Cascade Conference team last week for the second year in a row. She enters the tournament with a team-high average of 15.3 points and 93 3-point makes, the third-highest total in the NAIA, leaving her eight 3-pointers away from the SOU single-season record. In four tournament games last year, she averaged 10.8 points with 10 3s.
• SOU's other All-CCC selection, senior forward Eliza DiGiulio, has scored in double figures 12 consecutive games and 17 of her last 18. She had a team-high 19 in SOU's CCC quarterfinal loss to Lewis-Clark State (Idaho), raising her season averages to 12.5 points and 4.5 boards.
• Pressure from guards Keeley Wright and Sage Winslow will key the defense. They're combining for 4.4 steals per game and were the first Raider teammates in eight years to both total 60 in a regular season.
• The Raiders are 16-1 when they shoot better than 36% from the field. They haven't lost a game in which they scored more than 70 points since 2020.