BOZEMAN — A key element to the first two rounds of the NCAA women's basketball tournament is that the highest seed in each quadrant serves as the host.
Fresh off the Big Sky Conference championship, No. 13-seeded Montana State travels to fourth-seeded Ohio State for a Friday night showdown. The Buckeyes are 25-6 overall and 15-0 on their home floor this season.
The Bobcats, however, are the only 30-win team in Big Sky Conference history and plan to make some noise in the Big Dance.
"They’re very good on their home floor," Montana State head coach Tricia Binford said. "We’ve had that experience at Florida Gulf Coast. We’ve had that experience in Dahlberg Arena (at Montana). We’ve had a lot of situations this year where we’ve had to be road warriors. My first reaction is this team is built for being road warriors, so let’s bring it."
The Cats have had a target on their back all throughout conference play as the top team in the Big Sky. Now, they get to turn the tables trying to upset Ohio State.
"We’re underdogs now, so we can go out there and just play free and just (not) have the pressure of, 'Oh, we have to win it, we have to, we’re top.' No, we’re underdogs now, so just go out there and just play us," Montana State guard Esmeralda Morales said of her team's mindset.
Morales continued to explain what stands out most about OSU.
"They’re physical," she said. "They have a good starting five. They love to pressure the ball. Just a different style of basketball over there."
The last time the Montana State women were in March Madness was against Stanford in 2022. It was a tough 78-37 loss where the team couldn’t get its offense really started until the second quarter.
"Obviously, the last one, it took us a whole quarter to put points on the board, and we just got to get settled in early," Binford said. "We were pretty disrupted in that first quarter. That was a long time ago, and this team is different. This team’s identity has been about defense all season long, so we’re going to start there and see what our defense can do (to) get stops.
"We know we’re going to be really tested on somebody’s home floor, but if we can get some great stops and get some easier things early on, I think that’d be a great way to get going."
Defense travels — especially one that ranks first in the country in steals, third in turnover margin and fifth in turnovers forced per game.
MSU tips off against OSU on ESPN2 at 3:30 p.m. Mountain time on Friday.
