NCAA WOMEN’S BASKETBALL TOURNAMENT PREVIEW: Holy Cross Faces UT Martin on Thursday Night

IOWA CITY, Iowa – No. 16 Holy Cross will tackle No. 16 UT Martin within the First 4 of the NCAA Girls’s Basketball Match on Thursday night time on the Carver-Hawkeye Area in Iowa Metropolis, Iowa.

HOW TO WATCH: The Crusaders and Skyhawks will meet for the primary time once they play in Iowa Metropolis. Protection will start at 9 p.m. ET on ESPN2 with Beth Mowins and Stephanie White on the decision.  
Reside Stats | Watch

ABOUT HOLY CROSS
Press Convention Transcription
* Holy Cross makes the Match for the second straight 12 months after defeating Boston College within the 2024 PenFed Credit score Union Patriot League Girls’s Basketball Championship Sport.
* Crusaders’ head coach Maureen Magarity captured her second Patriot League crown in her fourth season on the helm of this system.
* Holy Cross has a League-leading 13 ladies’s basketball titles and is the primary back-to-back League champion since Navy (2011-13).
* The Crusaders enter the postseason on a four-game successful streak which is the second longest of their season after they received 9 straight beginning in December 2023.
* They’re led by Patriot League Championship MVP, senior guard Bronagh Energy-Cassidy who’s averaging a team-leading 16.8 factors per recreation to go along with 5.0 rebounds per recreation.

HOLY CROSS IN THE NCAA TOURNAMENT
* Holy Cross makes its 14th NCAA Match look holding a 1-12 report.
* The Crusaders’ lone win within the NCAA Match was in 1991 once they defeated No. 6 Maryland, 81-74. The win additionally marks the one NCAA Girls’s Basketball Match win in Patriot League historical past.
* Final 12 months the Crusaders fell to No. 2 Maryland, 93-61, because the No. 15 seed within the first spherical.

ABOUT UT MARTIN
* UT Martin superior to the title recreation of the Ohio Valley Girls’s Basketball Championship, the place they fell to Southern Indiana.
* Their final look within the NCAA Match was in 2014 once they misplaced to No. 12 North Carolina, 60-58.
* Freshman guard Kenley McCarn leads the staff with 16.7 factors and 4.5 rebounds per recreation as 97.5 p.c of the Skyhawks’ offensive manufacturing comes from their freshman and sophomores.
* Sophomore ahead Anaya Brown averages 15.1 factors and eight.9 factors per recreation.

ABOUT THE PATRIOT LEAGUE
The Patriot League is in its fourth decade of educational and athletic achievement, frequently demonstrating that student-athletes can excel at each lecturers and athletics with out sacrificing excessive requirements. The Patriot League’s athletic success is achieved whereas its member establishments stay dedicated to its founding precept of admitting and graduating student-athletes who’re academically consultant of their class. Participation in athletics at Patriot League establishments is considered as an essential element of a well-rounded training.