Cowgirls Draw UCLA in First Round of the NCAA Tournament

The Wyoming Cowgirl basketball team is one of the #14 seeds at the Women's NCAA Tournament and will take on UCLA from the Pac-12 Conference. That game will start at 8 pm Mountain Time on Monday, March 22nd. UW will enter the tournament with a record of 14-9 while UCLA is 16-5 and a 12-4 mark in Pac-12 play. The entire tournament will be played in Texas with games in San Antonio, San Marcos, and Austin due to coronavirus concerns. Wyoming's game will be played on the campus of the University of Texas in Austin and will be televised by ESPN.

The Cowgirls were the 7th seed at the Mountain West Conference Tournament in Las Vegas and ended up winning the tourney and receive the league's automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament. Along the way, Wyoming beat nemesis Boise State and held on to beat Fresno State at the buzzer in the championship game. Wyoming last appeared in the NCAA Tournament in 2008 when they lost to Pittsburgh 63-58 in Albuquerque. The Cowgirls have three players averaging in double figured led by Lyman native McKinley Bradshaw who is throwing in 11.7 points a game. Quinn Weidemann has been averaging 11 points even and Alba Sanchez-Ramos has been contributing 10.1 points per contest.

UCLA finished 3rd in the Pac-12 regular-season behind Stanford and Arizona. The Bruins are the 3rd seed in the Hemisphere region and this program has been to the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Tournament 4 years in a row and was projected to be a #3 seed in 2020 before the tourney was canceled. including an Elite 8 appearance in 2018. UCLA won two games in the Pac-12 Tournament, beating Washington and Arizona before losing to Stanford in the title game. The Bruins are currently ranked 9th in the country and were rated as high as #5. UCLA is led in scoring by Michaela Onyenware who is averaging 22 points per game.