While WSU women’s basketball team is a one-seed in the WBIT Tournament and will host a Tournament play at home at Beasley Coliseum, more local college basketball will be played in Spokane.
Just a 90-minute drive away, McCarthey Athletic Center will host four teams for the first round of the Women’s side of the NCAA Tournament. To prepare for the weekend of play, let’s preview the four teams playing to advance.
No. 4 seed Gonzaga (30-3)
WSU faced the Bulldogs early in the 2023–24 season. With full strength, the Cougs narrowly escaped with a 77-72 OT win on their home court. It was the first loss of the season for Gonzaga and there only other losses were to then-No. 20 Louisville and then to Portland in the WCC Championship.
A perfect 14-0 at home, Gonzaga gets the chance to continue to defend Spokane as they stay local for the start of the 2024 NCAA Tournament.
Yvonne Ejim is the leading scorer for the Bulldogs. Standing at 6-foot, 1-inch tall, she dominates inside to the tune of 19.8 points per game on 61.3% shooting while averaging 8.5 rebounds a game and nearly a block per game on defense, keeping a tight grip on the paint.
Gonzaga also has the Truong twins, as Kayleigh and Kaylynne score at an impressively similar rate, averaging 11.9 and 11.6, respectively. One shoots 43.8% from the field while the other shoots 43.9%. One has 42 steals, the other 43. One shoots 78.7% from the free-throw line, the other 78.3%.
It really is double trouble for the duo, as both are proving more than capable of producing similar numbers and accounting for a lot of Gonzaga’s offense.
Scoring an average of 81.3 points per game, their three losses were by a combined 17 points, most of which came from the 11-point defeat by Louisville.
Their most impressive wins include then-No. 3 Stanford, Cal, Arizona, Alabama and having gone undefeated in regular season Conference play, only losing in the WAC Championship by a single point.
No. 13 seed UC Irvine (23-8)
Gonzaga’s opponent is UC Irvine, a 23-win team that won the Big West after defeating UC Davis 53-39 in the Championship game.
A defensive team, they hold opponents to an average of 55.0 points per game and even held teams to below 40 on multiple occasions. Despite overall strong defense, they tend to give up more points as the game progresses.
In first-quarter action this season, they’ve allowed 379 points, with that point total allowed increasing in each subsequent quarter and resting at 486 points allowed in the fourth quarter.
Against Gonzaga’s WAC rival Saint Mary’s, UC Irvine fell hard, losing 37-52 in just their third game of the regular season. Failing to get a double-digit scorer, they shot just 24.5% from the field and an abysmal 4.8% from three.
Shooting has been a struggle all season for the team, who’ve shot just 26.0% from behind the arc while allowing their opponents to shoot 31.4% from deep. Facing a Gonzaga team that holds opponents to shooting 28.4% from three, UC Irvine might find it difficult to claw their way back in the game if they fall behind early.
No. 5 seed Utah (22-10)
Representing the Pac-12, Utah went 11-7 in Conference play and bowed out in the Pac-12 Tournament quarterfinals with a 10-point loss to UCLA. However, in regular season play, they managed to beat Tournament Champion USC twice, WSU twice, UCLA by double-digits in OT and Colorado by one at home.
A much better team at home, the Utes went 8-5 in away games and 2-2 in neutral site games and they enter the NCAA Tournament 4-3 in their last seven games, with two of those losses being to the same Bruins team.
Playing without one of their stars, Gianna Kneepkens suffered a season-ending foot injury in early December. She averaged 17.8 points per game in her eight games, shooting 63.3% from the field and 54.0% from three.
Without her, the team relies even more on Alissa Pili, scoring 20.8 points per game with 6.5 rebounds and 2.4 assists.
No. 12 South Dakota State (27-5)
Utah faces a South Dakota State team that went undefeated in Conference play, but in non-conference play, lost by 40 to No. 1-ranked South Carolina, lost by two to Wisconsin, lost to Gonzaga by 25, lost by 12 to Creighton and lost by five to Washington State.
While they have not lost since being bested by Creighton, they have also not played any significant teams. In their five losses, they only scored over 60 points twice and scored under 50 twice, their worst being a 38-point outing against South Carolina.
Over all games played, the Jackrabbits have scored an average of 74.2 points per game, but again, they’ve been doing it against relatively lesser competition.
From November to December, their average was 63.8 points per game, which significantly increased after Conference play started. They have three separated double-digit scorers, led by Brooklyn Meyer’s 17.0 points per game. Meyer has also been a defensive force, totaling 60 blocks in 32 games started, proving she can be the difference maker if South Dakota State can upset Utah.
