The University of Minnesota Duluth women's basketball team has earned the No. 1 spot in the Central Region of the NCAA Tournament, the league revealed as part of Selection Sunday. This means that the Bulldogs will now play host to the Central Regional. It will be the first time UMD has ever played host to a regional between both the women's and men's programs. It's the team's fifth-straight NCAA Tournament bid overall.
The Bulldogs' first round opponent will be no slouch. UMD's draw is No. 8 Southern Nazarene, which won the Great American Conference (GAC) Tournament by way of a 57-46 victory against Harding. The Storm enter March Madness with a 27-4 overall record and a 21-1 mark in GAC play that was good enough for them to win the conference's regular-season title.
UMD certainly earned the right for the Central Region to run through Romano. The Bulldogs head into March with a 27-3 overall record. Included in this was an impressive 21-1 in-conference mark that helped the squad secure not only its fourth-straight NSIC North Championship but also its third-straight outright NSIC Title. It's one of only five times that a program has three-peated as regular-season champs. But when it comes to the conference tournament, the 2022-23 Bulldogs made sure that their school stands alone in history. UMD became the first program in NSIC women's basketball to win three-consecutive tournament titles when it defeated Minnesota State 80-74 in the championship game back on Feb. 28.
Helping to lead the charge in that latter effort was tournament MVP Brooke Olson, who naturally became the first athlete to ever win that accolade in three-straight seasons. It was just another honor to place atop the sea of recognition the graduate forward's received this year, including her fourth-straight NSIC Player of the Year nod. Yep, Olson's also the first player to ever do that four times in a row.
And at the bench for it all was NSIC Coach of the Year Mandy Pearson, who earned the moniker for the second time in her eight-year stint with UMD. Pearson guided the Bulldogs to their fourth 20-win season under her tenure on the path to surpassing the 100-win mark in NSIC play, currently sitting with 118.
UMD is one of three programs representing the NSIC in the NCAA Tournament, the others being No. 5 Minnesota State and No. 6 Augustana. Four teams are dancing out of the Mid-America Intercollegiate Athletics Association (MIAA), those being No. 2 Nebraska Kearney, No. 3 Missouri Southern State, No. 4 Central Missouri and No. 7 Pittsburg State. Southern Nazarene is the lone GAC rep in the tournament.
The regional will begin on Friday, March 10 and run until Monday, March 13. Game times are TBA. Each contest (even non-UMD games) will be broadcast live free-of-charge on the NSIC Network on nsicnetwork.com. A dedicated regional website will soon be posted with further information.
