NCAA TOURNAMENT: Bruins Get Bye; Will Face Chapman-Oxy Winner Saturday

NEWBERG, Ore. – Geographical isolation and a 27-0 record turned out to be a perfect combination for the George Fox University Bruins, who have received the lone first-round bye in NCAA Division III Women’s Basketball National Tournament and will not play until Saturday, March 7, when they will host the winner of a first-round game between Chapman University and Occidental College at 7:00 p.m.

Tickets for the game on Saturday will be $6 for adults and $3 for students, children, and seniors 55 and up.  Children age two and under are free.  Advance tickets will go on sale in the George Fox athletics office on Wednesday and must be purchased in person.  Regular season passes are not valid for the NCAA playoffs.

Campus station KFOX Radio will webcast the game, and LiveStats and live video streaming will also be available.  Links to George Fox multimedia coverage:

KFOX radio webcasts - http://www.georgefox.edu/offices/asc/kfoxradio/

LiveStats - http://academic.georgefox.edu/~sports/xlive.htm

Live video streaming - http://media.georgefox.edu/bruinsports.html

George Fox and the two California schools were the only teams west of the Great Plains to be invited to this year’s 63-team playoffs, so the bye for the undefeated Bruins apparently made the most logical sense to the NCAA Selection Committee, which announced the brackets this morning. 

George Fox, ranked No. 2 in the USA Today / ESPN / Women’s Basketball Coaches Association poll and No. 3 in the D3hoops.com poll, is one of two remaining undefeated teams in D-III women’s hoops (No. 1 Illinois Wesleyan at 27-0 is the other).  The Bruins will be making their third straight appearance in the national tournament, fourth in five years, and sixth in 10 seasons of NCAA eligibility.  They have a 7-5 record in NCAA post-season play, reaching the “Sweet 16” in 2000, 2005, and 2008, and the “Elite 8” in 2005.

The Bruins earned the Northwest Conference’s automatic bid to the playoffs by winning the conference tournament with victories over Whitman College and the University of Puget Sound.  George Fox became only the second team in the history of the NWC and its predecessor conference, the Women’s Conference of Independent Colleges, to go undefeated through conference play, going 16-0 to win the league title by five games (Willamette University with a 10-0 record in 1985-86 was the other). 

The Bruins’ remarkable success this season was somewhat unexpected after losing all five starters and seven seniors from the 2007-08 team that went 25-5 and lost to No. 1-ranked Hope College in the “Sweet 16”.  With only four returning letter winners and 10 freshmen on the roster, George Fox was picked fifth in the NWC pre-season poll.

Leading the Bruins into the post-season is the team’s lone senior, 6-4 center Kristen Shielee, who averages 12.3 points and 9.7 rebounds a game.  She set a new single-season record this season with 103 blocked shots, and ranks sixth nationally in that category with 3.8 per game.  Her field goal percentage of .632 is fifth nationally.

The Bruins’ top two scorers are freshmen wings Keisha Gordon and Sage Indendi.  Gordon averages 12.7 points a game and Indendi 12.3.  Gordon is fourth among the conference leaders in three-point field goals (1.65 per game), while Indendi is second in the league in steals (2.41 a game).

Two juniors round out the starting five for the Bruins, Elise Kuenzi at forward and B.B. Gardner at point guard.  Kuenzi averages 10.0 points and 5.2 rebound a game and is fifth in the NWC in free throw percentage at .800.  Gardner, who scores at a 4.3 clip, is seventh in assists (3.07 per game) while leading the conference in assist/turnover ratio (1.66).

George Fox coach Scott Rueck, a five-time NWC Coach of the Year, including last year when he was also named West Region Coach of the Year by D3hoops.com, has a record of 255-85 and won-lost percentage of .750 in his 13th season with the Bruins.

The Chapman Panthers (19-8) will host the Occidental Tigers (22-5) Wednesday evening, with the winner flying to Oregon Thursday for Saturday’s match with the Bruins.  Chapman received one of three Pool B bids for independents, while Occidental won the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference championship.  George Fox has never met Occidental, but the Bruins are 3-0 all-time against Chapman, including an 82-52 victory over the Panthers this season on Dec. 13 in Newberg.