UALR sent West, to meet Gonzaga

UALR players react during a NCAA Tournament watch party Monday at the Jack Stephens Center in Little Rock. The Trojans will play Gonzaga on Saturday.
UALR players react during a NCAA Tournament watch party Monday at the Jack Stephens Center in Little Rock. The Trojans will play Gonzaga on Saturday.

The University of Arkansas at Little Rock's women's basketball team is going dancing in Oregon.

UALR (21-10), the Sun Belt Conference Tournament champions, earned a No. 12 seed in the NCAA Tournament on Monday and will face No. 5 seed Gonzaga (28-4) in the first round of the Albany Region at 2:30 p.m. Central on Saturday at Oregon State's Gill Coliseum in Corvallis, Ore.

The first-ever meeting between the Trojans and Bulldogs will be televised on ESPN2.

The winner of UALR and Gonzaga game will advance to face the winner of No. 4 seed Oregon State and No. 13 seed Boise State for a chance to advance to Albany, N.Y., in the Sweet 16.

"Let's go give 'em hell," UALR Athletic Director Chasse Conque said during a seed-reveal party Monday at the Jack Stephens Center in Little Rock.

This will be the Trojans' sixth trip to the NCAA Tournament. UALR is 2-5 all-time since their first appearance in the NCAA Tournament in 2010.

UALR has not earned a victory in the NCAA Tournament since defeating No. 6 seed Texas A&M 69-60 as a No. 11 seed in 2015.

The Trojans are coming off winning their fifth conference championship and earning one of 32 automatic bids into the NCAA Tournament.

UALR went 15-3 in Sun Belt Conference regular season play and were 0-5 against NCAA Tournament opponents, including a 98-63 loss to Mississippi State, one of the four No. 1 seeds in the field. The Trojans also lost to NCAA Tournament teams Texas A&M, Kansas State, Missouri State and Rice.

"We've proven we can beat Power Five schools," said UALR Coach Joe Foley. "Maybe this year we can do it again."

How much does UALR know about Gonzaga?

"Nothing," said senior forward Ronjanae DeGray, the co-Sun Belt Player of the Year.

"But," she said, "I looked at their roster."

The Bulldogs earned an at-large bid into the NCAA Tournament after putting together a 28-4 season. Gonzaga was defeated 82-68 by BYU on Tuesday in the West Coast Conference Championship Game.

However, Gonzaga is going into the UALR game short-handed.

Senior guard Laura Stockton -- the daughter of NBA Hall of Famer John Stockton who averaged a team-leading 4.3 assists and posted 8.9 points per game this season -- and sophomore guard Jill Townsend were injured in Gonzaga's double-overtime West Coast Tournament semifinal victory against Saint Mary's College of California on March 11.

Neither are expected to play in the NCAA Tournament's first round against UALR, according to The Associated Press.

Townsend was Gonzaga's second-leading scorer (9.4 ppg) behind senior forward Zykera Rice's 14.8 points.

Like the Trojans' Ronjanae and Raeyana DeGray, the Bulldogs also have their own set of twin forwards.

Sophomores Jenn Wirth, a reserve, and LeeAnne Wirth, a starter, are each 6-3. Both have played in 25-plus games and combined to record 275 of the Bulldogs' 1,234 total rebounds this season (22.3 percent).

"They're pretty tall," Ronjanae Gray said.

Sports on 03/19/2019

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