March 5, 2026

MADISON, S.D. – The National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) has officially announced the teams and bracket for the 2026 NAIA Women's Basketball Championship First and Second Rounds, presented by Ballogy. The 64-team bracket will begin with the First and Second Rounds at host sites nationwide on March 13-14. The 2026 NAIA Second Round winners will meet in Sioux City, Iowa, at the NAIA Championship final site presented by Bomgaars and Sterling. The 45th annual championship occurs at the Tyson Events Center from March 19-24.

This year's First Round field includes 35 automatic qualifiers and 29 at-large selections. Automatic berths were given to teams that either won their respective conference tournament title or regular season championship, finished runner-up at the conference tournament or were otherwise selected by the conference. The NAIA Women's Basketball National Selection Committee determined the at-large bids. The selection committee consists of one representative from each geographical area and six at-large members, comprised of coaches and administrators from around the country.

Dakota State (26-5 overall record) was placed in the Naismith quadrant as a No. 3 seed and will host three other teams in the four-team pod.  It is the third straight year that the Trojans will host the NAIA First and Second Rounds at DSU Fieldhouse.

The Trojans qualified for the NAIA National Tournament as the Frontier Conference's regular season title with a 19-3 record.  DSU fell short against host-team Montana Tech in the Frontier postseason tournament's championship game on March 2 in Butte.

DSU will be making their sixth consecutive appearance to the NAIA national tournament, their longest consecutive streak in Trojan women's basketball program history.  The Trojans had produced more than 20 victories in the last six seasons.

The Trojans open their national tournament play next Friday versus No. 14 seed Grand View (Iowa) (22-8 overall record) of the Heart of America Athletic Conference.  The Vikings earned the Heart's automatic bid as the regular season runner-up.

The other match-up will feature No. 6 seed Concordia (Neb.) (23-7 overall record) of the Great Plains Athletic Conference and the No. 11 seed Bethel (Kan.) (20-9 overall record) of the Kansas Collegiate Athletic Conference.   The Bulldogs earned an at-large invitation to the national tournament, while the Threshers earned the KCAC's tournament championship No. 2 seed automatic bid to the national tournament.

Game times will be announced later, stay tuned to the dsuathletics.com for more information.  Watch out for the NAIA Women's Basketball Tournament page.

Dakota State will host all First and Second Round games for free to the NAIA Channel on the Urban Edge Network.  For more information on how to watch, go to naia.org/watch.