Women’s basketball earns No. 1 seed

The Stanford women’s basketball team was given the No. 1 seed in the Spokane Regional when the full bracket for the women’s NCAA Tournament was revealed on Monday.

With Maples Pavilion as one of the host sites for the first and second rounds, the Cardinal (31-2, 17-1 Pac-12) will open tournament play at home against No. 16 Tulsa (17-16, 8-8 Conference USA). The winner of that contest will then face the winner of the other first-round game on campus, either No. 8 Michigan (21-10, 13-4 Big Ten) or No. 9 Villanova (21-10, 9-8 Big East).

The Golden Hurricane earned its place in the Big Dance with a 75-66 win over UCF in the Conference USA Tournament final on Saturday and is led by senior guard Taleya Mayberry (18.7 ppg and 4.2 rpg) and Tiffani Couisnard (8.5 ppg and 9.1 rpg).

Elsewhere, archrival California received the No. 2 seed in Stanford’s region, possibly setting up the third game between the two schools this year. In January, the Cardinal won 62-53 on the road in Berkeley, but dropped the return game 55-67 five days later in Maples. An expected rematch between the two schools was postponed last week when UCLA knocked the Golden Bears out of the Pac-12 Tournament 70-58.

The other No. 1 seeds in the NCAA Tournament are Baylor (32-1, 15-0 Big 12), Notre Dame (31-1, 16-0 Big East) and Connecticut (29-4, 14-2 Big East). Stanford has split games against Baylor (defeating the Bears 71-69 in Hawaii in November) and Connecticut (losing 35-61 at home in December) but has not yet faced the Irish this season.

The game against Tulsa will tip off at 2:20 p.m. PT in Maples Pavilion on Sunday.