March 5, 2009

KANSAS CITY, Mo. - The National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) has released its 32-team bracket for the 18th Annual NAIA Division II Women's Basketball National Championship.  Tyson Events Center/Gateway Arena in Sioux City, Iowa will host the event on March 11-17, 2009.
 


The tournament will start with the first round games on Wednesday, March 11 and Thursday, March 12 and will end with the championship game on Tuesday, March 17 at 7 p.m.

Both King College and Covenant College will open play on Thursday. King will play one of the number one seeds College of the Ozarks from Missouri at 10:15 AM CST and Covenant will open against a number two seed Northwestern College from Iowa at 7 PM.

In 2008 Northwestern (Iowa) used a strong second half to earn a hard fought 82-75 victory over the College of the Ozarks (Mo.) to capture its second title.
 
JumpTV Inc. is the exclusive provider of live video and audio-streaming at the NAIA National Championship. JumpTV will stream the first 30 games of the championships. These events can be viewed by going to www.watchnaia.com.  The National Championship Game will air live nationwide on CBS College Sports.

Three schools have captured back-to-back titles in Division II history.  Western Oregon (1995 and 1996), Hastings (Neb.) (2002 and 2003) and Morningside (Iowa) (2004 and 2005) all defended their title after winning their first championship.
 
Hastings has captured the most championships with three, while Morningside, Northern State (S.D.), Northwestern (Iowa) and Western Oregon all won two titles.
 
The schools from Great Plains Athletic Conference have captured seven of the last eight national championships.  Indiana Wesleyan won the title in 2007 breaking the streak of six straight by GPAC schools.
 
To view a PDF version of the official bracket, click here
For more information on the Championships, click here.