KANSAS CITY, Mo. - The National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) has officially released the field of 32 teams for the 19th Annual State Farm-NAIA Division II Women's Basketball National Championship, held March 10 - 16 at the Tyson Events Center/Gateway Arena in Sioux City, Iowa.
College Fanz Sports Network, the world's largest online college sports community launched by ESPN founder Bill Rasmussen, will offer live video streaming broadcasts of the tournament selections starting Wednesday at 3:30 p.m. CST. This broadcast will be available, live, free and on-demand, at www.CollegeFanz.com.
The College of the Ozarks (Mo.) is the longest attending team, advancing for the 16th season and eighth consecutive season after winning the Midlands Collegiate Athletic Conference Tournament.
Haskell Indian Nations (Kan.), Indiana University Northwest and St. Thomas (Fla.) is each making its first appearance in the event. Indiana University Northwest captured the Association of Independent Institutions Tournament title and St. Thomas won The Sun Conference. Haskell Indian Nations received an at-large bid.
Five teams will represent the Great Plains Athletic Conference and four Mid-Central College Conference squads qualify to Sioux City. The American Mideast Conference and Dakota Athletic Conference each send a trio of teams.
The 32-team field is comprised of 20 automatic qualifiers from NAIA affiliated conferences and Association of Independent Institutions and 12 at-large selections, which are determined using the final Top 25 rating released on Feb. 22.
Thirty-one games will be played out in Sioux City. The first 30 games will be video-streamed by NeuLion, the parent company of JumpTV. Three different subscription plans for basketball (Men's and Women's Division I; Men's and Women's Division II) will be available for tournament coverage. Users can purchase the All-Tournament pass, which includes every event offered on College Sports Direct from all four basketball tournaments for $39.95. Each of the four basketball tournaments can be purchased separately for $24.95 and any single day can be purchased for $9.95. In order to view the streaming, click here.
The Championship final on March 16 will be televised live nationally on CBS College Sports Television with tipoff at 9 p.m. CST.
The link below will show St. Thomas statistics for the season including top-5 rankings in Scoring Defense, Steals per game, Turnover Margin, and Total Steals. These numbers are tangible evidence of the Bobcats' work on the defensive end of the floor.
http://www.dakstats.com/WebSync/Pages/Team/TeamStats.aspx?association=10&sg=WBB&team=8269&tab=3&sea=NAIWBB_2009