Lady Pilots Draw Oklahoma Baptist
March 12, 2009
KANSAS CITY, Mo. – The LSUS Lady Pilots will face No. 4 Oklahoma Baptist University in the first round of the 29th Annual NAIA Division I Women’s Basketball National Championship, as the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) released its 32-team bracket earlier today.
LSUS (No. 8 seed) and OBU (No. 1 seed) were both automatic qualifiers, as the Lady Pilots received the Gulf Coast Athletic Conference’s second automatic bid after facing the GCAC regular season champion in the conference tournament finals, while OBU qualified as the regular season champion of the Sooner Athletic Conference.
The Lady Pilots (27-5) are making their first-ever National Tournament appearance, while Oklahoma Baptist (29-4) will make their 15th appearance overall.
LSUS and OBU are set to square off at 10:45 a.m. on Thursday morning. The tournament will start with the first round games on Wednesday, March 18 and Thursday, March 19 and will end with the championship game on Tuesday, March 24 at 7 p.m.
The women’s bracket is broken down into fourths with eight teams in each quarter of the bracket. The 2008 championship tournament saw three of the four No. 1 seeds lose in the first or second round, an eight seed knock off No. 1 in the first round for the second consecutive year and the No. 1 team in the country for all 11 regular season polls bounced out in the semifinal round.
JumpTV Inc. is the exclusive provider of live video and audio-streaming at the NAIA National Championship. JumpTV will stream the first 30 games of the championships. These events can be viewed by going to http://www.watchnaia.com/. The National Championship Game will air live nationwide on CBS College Sports.
To view a PDF version of the official bracket, click here (http://naia.cstv.com/photos/schools/naia/sports/w-baskbl/auto_pdf/2009DIWBBBracket.pdf)
For more information on the Championship, click here (http://naia.cstv.com/sports/w-baskbl/spec-rel/072108aab.html)
