‘We came from the bottom’: Sac State women will face UCLA in first NCAA Tournament
They have been underdogs for a good part of the 32 years they have been at the Division I women’s basketball level, so what’s one more game?
Sacramento State on Sunday afternoon, in a March Madness bracket-release watch party on campus, learned its greatest season will continue with a first-round game against UCLA as the Hornets make their first appearance in the Women’s NCAA Tournament.
Seeded 13th, the Hornets will put their school-record-best 25-7 season up against No. 4-seeded UCLA (25-9) on Saturday in Los Angeles as part of the Greenville Regional.
The game will be at famed Pauley Pavilion. The start time was not immediately announced.
How far have the Hornets come? Sacramento State is two years removed from a three-win season. The Hornets under coach Mark Campbell won 14 games last season, his first, then added nine new players and won a share of their first Big Sky Conference title and their first conference tournament championship. Sacramento State is on a roll, having won nine consecutive games.
Campbell is no stranger to UCLA or March Madness. He was an assistant coach with the Oregon Ducks for seven seasons, including a stint as assistant head coach. Oregon had five NCAA Tournament appearances during his run, including a trip to the Final Four in 2019. Oregon and UCLA are longtime members of the Pac-12 Conference.
Sacramento State will be joined in a four-team pod by No. 5-seeded and Big 12 regular season champion Oklahoma and No. 12 seeded and West Coast Conference Tournament champion Portland. Oklahoma is in its 21st NCAA Tournament.
Campbell said he especially feels good for his seniors. This includes team energizer and fourth-year guard Jordan Olivares, the longest-tenured Hornet, and Big Sky MVP point guard Kahlaijah Dean.
“It’s an amazing opportunity and we’re excited,” Campbell said of facing UCLA. “It’s been a two-year journey, getting the right pieces together, the right players. It’s a process. You can’t skip any steps. Last year’s team laid the foundation. This group has really springboarded off last year and it all came together.”
Campbell said his reaction to seeing the Sacramento State logo appear on the ESPN broadcast matched that of his team.
“Pure excitement,” he said. “This is my ninth time in the NCAA Tournament. Each journey, you enjoy it because it’s so hard to get here. I’m thrilled. I’m thrilled my team here gets to experience the magic of March.”
Olivares endured a COVID-19-plagued season and the three-win campaign, but she never wavered. She never left the program.
“All the work and the commitment we’ve put in, it’s paid off,” Olivares said. “We’ve grown so much. It’s very heartwarming. We came from the bottom. It feels very unreal to me. I’m still trying to process it all. It’s a big accomplishment.”
Dean, a transfer from Oakland University in Michigan, said she grew up dreaming of playing in the NCAA Tournament. Now she’s in the Big Dance — and not far from her Bakersfield roots.
“As a kid, I always watched the NCAA brackets on TV, and now being a part of it, it’s crazy to see,” she said. “We knew from the beginning of the season that this team was special.”
She added of her coach, “Mark Campbell has done a great job, an amazing job. We can’t wait to keep the journey going.”
UCLA hasn’t been the most storied program in the Pac-12 Conference over the decades by any stretch, but the Bruins did stun the school that has led that charge. UCLA beat mighty Stanford 69-65 in the Pac-12 Tournament semifinals when the Cardinal were ranked sixth in the nation and the Bruins 18th, offering a glimpse of how good they can be.
UCLA has been led in scoring by 5-foot-9 senior guard Charisma Osborne at 15.5 points per game.
This story was originally published March 12, 2023 at 7:25 PM.