LOS ANGELES, CA – March is a month of madness, and the Southern University women's basketball team are back in California for the second time in three years as they face UC San Diego in the 2025 DIv.1 NCAA Women's Basketball Tournament. The game is slated for 8 pm cst. on ESPNU at Paulery Pavilion on the campus of UCLA.
Southern (20-14, 15-3) has won ten of their last eleven games beating teams by an average of 15 points. The Jags has won by any means necessary to clinch the 2025 Regular season Championship with one game to go before the Confernce Tournament started.
UC San Diego (20-15, 13-7), winners of the Big West Conference tournament, the Tritons have won nine of their last eleven games played.
Having the number one seed and first round bye going into the SWAC Tournament. the Jags dominated their opponents by a 18.3 ppg margin of victory to win their second tournament title in three years.
"The team returned to campus on June 3 with 2 goals: to win a regular season championship, and make it to the NCAA tournament. They sacrificed their entire summer to start working out and conditioning in preparation for the upcoming season. They knew with the addition of nine new players this would be critical to our success, so they were all in, said
Carlos Funchess. They put in the work every day regardless of how they felt physically or mentally. I couldn't be more proud of these young ladies because they never stopped believing that they were going to be champions! Hopefully, the best is yet to come as we prepare to play our game on Wednesday."
Southern comes into the game averaging 59.8 points, 33.6 rebounds, 11 steals per game and forcing 18.9 turnovers a game.
Aniya Gourdine has led the Jaguars the majority of the season averaging 12.8 points a game. Soniyah Reed is the only other Jaguar that averages in double-digits with a 10.7 ppg. Three other Southern players average over 5 ppg.
Aleighyah Fontenot is third on the team at 7.9, followed by
Tionna Lidge at 7.1 and
Jocelyn Tate at 6.5.
The Tritons come into the game averaging 64.1 ppg and give up 58.0.
UC San Diego is led by Sumayah Sugapong at 14.7 and Sabrina Ma at 10.1 ppg. Rounding out the top five for the Tritons is Gracie Gallegos at 9.5, Erin Condron with 8.3 and Kayanna Spriggs at 7.9.
The winner of the First Four will take on No. 1 UCLA on Friday at 9 p.m. on ESPN.
FOLLOW THE JAGUARS
For complete coverage of Southern University Athletics, please follow the Jaguars on social media at @SouthernUsports (Twitter), @SouthernUJaguars (Facebook), @southernusports (Instagram) or visit the official home of Southern University Athletics at
www.gojagsports.com.
#GoJags #ProwlOn #SouthernIsTheStandard #WeAreSouthern #TheBluePrint
