Gonzaga women given No. 12 seed, will meet No. 5 Ole Miss in first round
The season started in the Midwest for the Gonzaga women’s basketball team. The Zags are headed back.
The 12th-seeded Bulldogs (24-9) meet 5-seed and 19th-ranked Ole Miss (23-11) on Friday at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. Tipoff is at 12:30 p.m. PDT and will be aired on ESPN2.
“I think only two of us have been in that scenario before (watching the selection show), finding out who we’re going to play in the tournament,” Gonzaga sophomore guard Allie Turner said. “So it’s just a great first for all of us. And we were stressed. In the end we were super cool.”
Minneapolis is where Gonzaga’s season ended last year in the WBIT quarterfinals, in an 82-77 overtime loss to Minnesota.
Gonzaga began the season on a two-game trip, winning 81-66 against North Dakota State and 72-69 against Toledo.
The 2025-26 Zags aren’t completely new to the NCAA Tournament. Lone senior, starting guard Ines Bettencourt, played two years at UConn before transferring to Gonzaga. So she’s familiar with the NCAA Tournament.
Gonzaga redshirt forward Lauren Whittaker was sitting on the bench during Gonzaga’s last NCAA Tournament appearance in 2024 when the Zags advanced to the Sweet 16.
The Zags are making their 16th trip to the NCAA Tournament. In 29 games, Gonzaga is 14-15.
Ole Miss won’t be an unfamiliar opponent. The eighth-seeded Rebels handled ninth-seed Gonzaga 71-48 when the two met in a first-round game in 2023 at Stanford.
“I don’t know if we would call them a familiar opponent, but we’ve played them,” Gonzaga coach Lisa Fortier said. “It’s a different team that we have and a different team that they have. We understand the style that coach Yo (Yolette McPhee-McCuin) plays. Her teams play physical. Her teams rebound well. Her teams draw a lot of fouls. They guard. That’s something she takes pride in. So we do have a little bit of experience with that.”
Don’t be misled by the Rebels’ record. Ole Miss hails from the Southeastern Conference, which placed nine teams in the tournament. Ole Miss finished in a four-way tie for sixth with Tennessee, Georgia and Kentucky at 8-8. All earned NCAA berths.
Traditional national power South Carolina, ranked fourth, won the SEC regular-season title and runner-up Texas, ranked third, captured the tournament championship. Also earning NCAA berths were No. 5 LSU, No. 6 Vanderbilt and No. 10 Oklahoma.
No doubt the SEC is the toughest conference in the nation with five teams in the top 10. Tennessee is the lone team of the nine SEC qualifiers that isn’t ranked.
Ole Miss is making its fifth straight trip to the NCAA Tournament under McPhee-McCuin. The Rebels were at the Spokane Regional last year where their season ended a Sweet 16 loss to UCLA.
The Rebels, who are in the NCAA Tournament for a 22nd time, are looking for their first trip to the Elite Eight since 2007. They’ve advanced to the Sweet 16 a dozen times and the Elite Eight eight times.
Ole Miss’ two signature victories this season were against Vanderbilt, which earned a 2 seed. The Rebels, who lost their last four regular-season games, beat Vanderbilt 83-75 and pulled off an 89-78 upset Friday.
Bettencourt is joyful to be leading the Zags to the Big Dance. To be headed back to Minneapolis is just fine.
“We got our season cut short by Minnesota, but this year is totally different,” Bettencourt said. “We’re in a different tournament and the stakes are higher. I think at this point it’s just having fun and keep building on what we’ve been doing the last month. (We’re) so much more different than when we started.”
Whittaker wants to see the Zags continue what they did at the West Coast Conference Tournament.
“We were a pretty locked in team,” Whittaker said. “We had our eyes on the prize and we kind of knew what we had to do in order to win.”