The march to March

Three wins in three days. 

This is the requirement for the Oregon State University women’s basketball team to join the infamous March Madness, or in other words, winning the West Coast Conference tournament.

“Ultimately, you gotta want it more than anybody,” head coach Scott Rueck said to the media prior to the team’s departure to Las Vegas. “We are not the most experienced team, we have been overcoming that all season, and these opponents meant nothing to us a month ago, and now we have history with everyone.”

The WCC tournament differs a lot from the previous Pac-12 tournament that the Beavers have played in. 

The first through four seeds get a bye round, whereas the five through 12 seeds duke it out to make it to the quarterfinal round. After one day, only eight teams remained. This year, after one day, 10 teams remain of the original 11. Previously after two days, only four teams remained. Now it is eight in the WCC, a drastic difference.

The biggest difference though comes with the seeding bias. The 12-seed in the Pac-12 had to win the same amount of games as the 5-seed. In the WCC, the 10 and 11 seeds have to win six games in six straight days compared to a 5-seed needing four. The 1 and 2 seeds only need to win two games.

“It is a 40-minute regular game, I’m not saying you aren’t going to be tired, but it could be your last game if you lose,” forward Kelsey Rees said. “You are so focused on the next possession and the next possession that tiredness is not something you think about during the game. I don’t think it is something we have to worry about.”

The University of San Francisco beat Loyola Marymount University on Friday and will be facing the Beavers on Sunday afternoon. 

This uncertainty isn’t a major issue for the team.

“I think it’s a lot about focusing on yourself a little bit in the first part of the week,” Rees said. “Just making sure that we’re ready with all our sets, all our defenses, and we’re making sure we know exactly where we wanna go within ourselves because you do obviously need to game plan your opponent, but a lot of the game comes down to how you play and how you execute your own things, less than what they do to you.”

The Beavers have beaten all three of the teams, only dropping a singular game against San Francisco in mid-January. 

Along with that, the Beavers have at least one win against every team on their side of the bracket. The only teams the Beavers have not secured victories against are seven-seed University of the Pacific and fifth-seed Washington State University, both of whom they could only possibly face in the championship.

“We’ve had the mindset the whole season that we need to win this and so we’ve been thinking about it all the time,” guard AJ Marotte said. “Getting our nets, getting our rings… we’re just excited to compete.”

The WCC tournament quarterfinals, when OSU first plays, will take place on March 9. The tournament kicked off on March 6 when the University of San Diego beat out Pepperdine University. The tournament will see one round every day until the championship game on March 11.