<\/p>\n
SCRANTON \u2014 Once again, the journey that is the NCAA Division III tournament for the University of Scranton women\u2019s basketball team will begin at home.<\/p>\n
The 64-team bracket was revealed Monday afternoon and the Lady Royals (27-0) will host the first two rounds at the John Long Center. They drew Framingham State (17-10) in the first round Friday at 8:30 p.m. Otterbein University (22-5) and Randolph-Macon University (21-7) are also headed here and will play in the other first-round matchup at 6 p.m. The two winners advance to the second round Saturday at 8:30 p.m.<\/p>\n
After winning its 11th straight and 14th overall Landmark Conference championship, Scranton earned an automatic bid to the tournament for a 38th time, which is the most in NCAA Division III women\u2019s history.<\/p>\n
Even though the Lady Royals knew they were in the tournament, it didn\u2019t make it any less exciting hearing their name called during the selection show.<\/p>\n
\u201cHearing and seeing your name up on that screen in front of the whole nation is an incredible feeling,\u201d senior and Holy Cross grad Kaci Kranson said. \u201cFor me, it\u2019s especially special because this is my fourth time in the NCAA tournament. Obviously, it\u2019s going to be my last. So we\u2019re really trying make a deep run this year and make it past the Elite Eight.\u201d<\/p>\n
Scranton has lost in the Elite Eight each of the past two seasons.<\/p>\n
Freshman and Dunmore graduate Sophia Talutto experienced the Selection Show for the first time.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I committed last year, I saw the videos of them (watching the show),\u201d Talutto said. \u201cIn that moment, I was like, \u2018Wow. I really want to be there.\u2019 So it was surreal (Monday) to finally be a part of that and wishing that would be me one day. It\u2019s really exciting.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have a great community here, which is one of the reasons why I came here. It\u2019s just like Dunmore. Having the home court advantage is such a difference in those types of games, especially in the NCAAs. Just to be a part of that and home with the community is going to be more motivation for us to win.\u201d<\/p>\n
Framingham State beat top-seeded Bridgewater State in the championship game of the Massachusetts State Collegiate Athletic Conference to earn an automatic bid to the tournament. It is the fourth NCAA bid for the Rams.<\/p>\n
Last time they were in the NCAAs, in 2024, they faced Scranton in the first round at the Long Center. The Lady Royals won, 60-39.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey were a tough team two years ago,\u201d Scranton coach Ben O\u2019Brien said. \u201cI expect they\u2019ll be tough again this year. I\u2019m not sure how many players they have back from that team a couple years ago, but I remember they were talented and very well-coached.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sophomore Faith Greene is the Rams\u2019 leading scorer at 16.5 points. Sophomore Jacqueline Schels, who was MVP of the MASCAC tournament, follows with 15.9 points.<\/p>\n
As for the other teams in the pod, Otterbein won its first Ohio Athletic Conference tournament championship, defeating top-seeded Baldwin-Wallace in the final, 51-45. The Cardinals scored eight of the game\u2019s final 10 points in the last four minutes to break a 43-43 tie and earn just its second NCAA tournament berth. The other came in 2013.<\/p>\n
Randolph-Macon received an at-large bid to the NCAA tournament after losing in the final of the Old Dominion Athletic Conference tournament to undefeated Washington & Lee, 67-56. It is the 14th NCAA berth for the Yellow Jackets.<\/p>\n
The Lady Royals are 1-1 against Randolph-Macon, including a 70-65 loss in the national semifinals in 2005. Scranton has never faced Otterbein.<\/p>\n
Sweet 16 and Elite Eight rounds will be held March 13-14. The Final Four again is being held at Roanoke College\u2019s Cregger Center in Virginia. The semifinals are March 19 and the final is March 21.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s an exciting time of the season. Our players have worked so hard to get to this point,\u201d O\u2019Brien said. \u201cLooking forward to getting to know all the teams in our pod and trying to learn as much as we can and, at the same time, get us ready to play our best basketball. We\u2019re excited. We have a great team and I think we\u2019re in for a fun few weeks here.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.thetimes-tribune.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" SCRANTON \u2014 Once again, the journey that is the NCAA Division III tournament for the University of Scranton women\u2019s basketball team will begin at home. The 64-team bracket was revealed Monday afternoon and the Lady Royals (27-0) will host the first two rounds at the John Long Center. They drew Framingham State (17-10) in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2309808,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[350851,21848],"class_list":["post-2309807","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-royalty","tag-college-sports","tag-sports"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Lady-Royals-again-to-host-NCAA-first-round-\u2013-Scranton.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2309807","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2309807"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2309807\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2309809,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2309807\/revisions\/2309809"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2309808"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2309807"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2309807"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2309807"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}