LOS ANGELES, CA – Southern University Women's Basketball program made history on Wednesday evening by winning the first ever NCAA Tournament game in program history. The #16 Jags will take on #1 UCLA in the first round of the 2025 DIv.1 NCAA Women's Basketball Tournament. The game is slated for 9 pm cst. on ESPN at Paulery Pavilion on the campus of UCLA.
Southern (21-14, 15-3) has won eleven of their last twelves games beating teams by an average of 15 points. The Jags has represented the school and conference very well in the NCAA Tournament.
UCLA (30-2, 16-2), winners of the Big 10 Conference tournament, the Bruins have won ten of their last twelve games played.
"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 60.8 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 Bruins come into the game averaging 78.8 ppg and give up 57.4.
UCLA is led by Lauren Betts at 19.7 and Kiki Rice at 12.8 ppg. Rounding out the top five for the Bruins is Gabriela Jaquez at 10.1, Londynn Jones with 8.7 and Angela Dugalic at 7.7.
The winner of the First Round will take on the winner of #8 Richmond and #9 Georgia Tech on Sunday afternoon.
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