If history is a guide, Gonzaga women will have hands full against physical Ole Miss in NCAA opener
For the Gonzaga women’s basketball team to win in an NCAA Tournament first-round game, it will take its best.
It likely will require more than its best.
The 5-seed Bulldogs (24-9) meet 12th-seeded Ole Miss (23-11) in a Big Dance opener Friday at the University of Minnesota’s Williams Arena.
One national pundit puts Gonzaga’s chance of pulling off an upset at 8.4%. FanDuel Sportsbook has the Zags has a 14.5-point underdogs.
The Road to Phoenix, site of the Final Four, begins at 16 first- and second-round sites this weekend before survivors traipse through Fort Worth, Texas, and Sacramento, California, for regionals.
It’s highly unlikely that the Zags will get anywhere near Phoenix, but that won’t stop them from dreaming.
The Zags have recent history with Ole Miss.
The challenge before Gonzaga is as daunting as it was three years ago when, as an 8 seed, the Zags faced off with 9-seed Ole Miss in a first-round game at Stanford.
An 8-9 pairing is historically considered the most even matchup in the opening round. Those were the assigned seeds when Gonzaga and Ole Miss met three years ago when the Rebels put a 71-48 hammerlock on the Zags.
Gonzaga didn’t have a chance. At one point in the third quarter, the Bulldogs trailed by 28.
Two things hampered Gonzaga in that frightful opener: Shooting and the Rebels’ defense.
The Rebels impose their will. They harass opponents into poor shots, poor shot selection and hurried shots. And it worked against the Zags, who made just 1 of 17 attempts from 3-point range. Gonzaga entered the game as the top-ranked 3-point shooting team in the nation.
Another trademark of the Rebels is physicality.
Suffice to say the loss was one of the Zags’ worst under coach Lisa Fortier.
Fortier was right to point out Sunday after the seedings were announced that the game was three years ago and the teams are different now. True. But the Rebels’ strategy will remain the same.
The coaches for both teams have reviewed the video of that game - obviously for different reasons.
Gonzaga, by the way, is ranked second in the nation in 3-point percentage behind No. 1-ranked and defending national champ UConn.
The 2025-26 Zags like physical play. The question is can they match the Rebels’ athleticism.
Just before the Zags met with the media following the selection show Sunday, Fortier warned her players that they might be asked about Gonzaga’s game against Ole Miss in 2023. The collective response was ‘we’ve played them before?’
The players have no connection to the previous NCAA Tournament game. And that could serve them well. They’ll certainly be forewarned about the Rebels’ style, but at least there’s no lingering scar tissue.
Fortier is encouraged by her team’s play at the West Coast Conference Tournament.
“The biggest thing that I would say is that we’ve been tested in different ways,” she said. “Those two games (in Las Vegas) were really different, and (Friday) is going to be a really different game as well. We’re trying to get our team to be able to play through a variety of styles. You try to get your team to win in a variety of ways because sometimes you can win pretty and sometimes you got to win ugly and sometimes it’s a little bit of both.”
Gonzaga has nine losses, but the Zags haven’t been blown out. Even in the setbacks where their chief challenge, turnovers, have handcuffed them, they pushed teams until the end.
The Zags, though, haven’t played a team as good as Ole Miss, which is ranked 19th in the Associated Press’ final poll before the tournament and one of nine SEC teams preparing for March Madness. The Rebels finished in a four-way tie for sixth. Those teams and the five that finished ahead of them are playing this weekend.
“(We) played with good confidence (in Las Vegas),” Fortier said. “We shared the ball well. We took care of the ball well at times and we rebounded well at times. So those things, as you move on and as you get to each stage, becomes harder. (Friday) will be harder. We’re gonna have to try to simulate that the best we can this week.”
One spot ahead of Ole Miss in the rankings at 18 is Minnesota (22-8), which opens against Green Bay (25-8), the Horizon League Tournament champ, in the other opener in Minneapolis.