Official Championship Page
Championship Bracket (PDF)
INDIANAPOLIS – The field of eight playoff teams has been finalized for the Great Midwest Athletic Conference Women’s Basketball Championship tournament bracket that will start on Tuesday.
Top seeded Walsh, No. 2 Kentucky Wesleyan, No. 3 Findlay and No. 4 Cedarville, will all host first-round quarterfinal matchups as the top four seeds. Their respective matchups include No. 8 Lake Erie, No. 7 Tiffin, No. 6 Ohio Dominican and No. 5 Malone.
The regular season concluded on Saturday afternoon with a handful of teams battling for postseason positioning in the conference Point Rating System.
The top seed advancing from those games will then host the remainder of the conference tournament that will be played on Friday (semifinals) and Saturday (championship). The winner of this year’s Great Midwest Championship tournament will cut the nets down and earn an AQ into the NCAA Championship Midwest Regional.
The defending conference champion Cavaliers from Walsh completed an undefeated run through the league schedule to earn the regular season title outright. Walsh’s quarterfinal opponent will be No. 8 Lake Erie on Tuesday in Alumni Arena at 5:30 p.m. ET.
By virtue of top placement in the inaugural Point Rating System scoring, the No. 11 nationally and No. 4 regionally ranked Cavaliers (25-2, 18-0 G-MAC) earned the No. 1 seed. Walsh is on a current 20-game win streak.
Walsh and Lake Erie will tangle for the third time in 2019-20 after just playing in the regular-season finale; the Cavaliers have had the upper hand in both home and away matchups. The Storm (10-18, 7-11 G-MAC) are tourney qualifiers for the second time in three seasons.
Kentucky Wesleyan’s home at the Owensboro Sportscenter will house another quarterfinal, a compelling rematch against Tiffin slated for a noon local time tip-off. The Panthers (26-2, 16-2 G-MAC) have been nationally ranked for the past few weeks and were fifth in the NCAA Midwest Region rankings.
KWC had its 13-game win streak halted by the Dragons (13-15, 8-10 G-MAC) after playing just last Saturday to end the regular season. It was a nail-biting double-overtime finish that helped secure Tiffin its first playoff berth as a member of the league, but could also be an indication of March Madness on the horizon as Tiffin aspires to be a bracket buster.
There just isn’t much that separates Cedarville and Malone from each other if you tried to predict an outcome for Tuesday between the two respected institutions. The Yellow Jackets (20-7, 13-5 G-MAC) ended the Pioneers’ season last year in the first-round of the conference tourney. Malone will be anxious for redemption in Cedarville’s Callan Athletic Center.
Malone (18-10, 12-6 G-MAC) has already beaten Cedarville on the road and Cedarville returned to favor to topple Malone in Canton in the wild 2019-20 season. Another game set for a 5:30 p.m. ET start will determine who moves on.
The fourth quarterfinal will pit Ohio Dominican at Findlay, another showdown where both teams are so familiar with each other’s playing style and personnel. Findlay wears opponents down in the post while Ohio Dominican can catch fire from the outside with a bevy of outside threats.
Both teams are on win streaks coming into the postseason; the Oilers (17-11, 13-5 G-MAC) have won six straight and the Panthers (17-11, 12-6 G-MAC) have won their last three games.
Great Midwest coaches are currently voting for the annual all-conference team, which features 10 student-athletes on the first team and 10 more names on the second team. Five additional names will be recognized on the all-defensive team. The conference championship banquet is scheduled for Thursday evening at a time still to be determined.