CLEVELAND, OH – Ohio Wesleyan ends the 2024-25 North Coast Athletic Conference regular season with the program's second-consecutive and seventh overall NCAC women's basketball championship title after compiling an unblemished 14-0 record against league foes.
Wittenberg leads all NCAC women's basketball squads with 14 titles all-time, while DePauw owns 11 conference crowns, followed by OWU with seven, Allegheny with six, Denison with four, Kenyon with three and Wooster with two.
As league champions, the Battling Bishops have earned the top seed and hosting rights for the 2025 NCAC women's basketball final four. The seeding for the tournament follows the regular-season standings with the top-six teams earning a berth into the postseason. The three-way tie between Denison (8-6), Oberlin (8-6) and Wittenberg (8-6) for third was broken via the conference tiebreaker system for seeding purposes only.
In the quarterfinal round on Tuesday, February 25, No. 6 Hiram (4-10) travels to No. 3 Denison, while No. 4 Oberlin hosts No. 5 Wittenberg. Both games are set to tipoff at 7:00 p.m. During the regular season, the Big Red swept the Terriers, 86-77 on Jan. 18 and 57-50 on Feb. 15, while the Tigers collected two wins over the Yeowomen, 81-52 on Jan. 18 and 72-55 on Feb. 15.
The semifinals will be held on Friday, Feb. 28, in Delaware, with top-seeded Ohio Wesleyan taking on the quarterfinal winner of Oberlin versus Wittenberg at 5:00 p.m., while No. 2 DePauw (12-2) will square off against the winner of the Hiram versus Denison quarterfinal for a 7:00 p.m. showdown.
The tournament final is set for 4:00 p.m. on Saturday at Ohio Wesleyan University as the semifinal winners will compete for the tournament title and receive the NCAC's automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament.
TOURNEY TALK: DePauw is the defending NCAC Tournament champion after earning a tightly contested 56-53 victory over Ohio Wesleyan in the 2024 tournament final to claim the Tigers' eighth tourney crown. DePauw along with Wittenberg (9), Denison (7), OWU (6) and Allegheny (5) have combined to win 35-of-39 women's tournament titles, while Kenyon (2), Oberlin (1) and Wooster (1) account for the four other tourney trophies ... Top-seeded Ohio Wesleyan and third-seeded Denison, which last won the tourney title in 2011, have both qualified for the tournament 39 out of the 40 competitive seasons, every year it has been contested (with one season cancelled due to Covid 19) … Second-seeded DePauw enters its 13th NCAC Tournament carrying a 28-4 record in tournament action and the league's highest winning percentage at .875, while Wittenberg is second in tournament play with a .684 winning percentage (54-25). Ohio Wesleyan has gone 53-32 in the tournament (.626) and Denison owns a 42-31 record in tournament action (.575) … Fifth-seeded Wittenberg is tied with OWU for the most appearances in the championship game (17), while Denison has 13 and DePauw has eight, followed by Kenyon (6), Wooster (4) and Oberlin (2) … The Yeowomen, who won the tourney title as a three seed in 2018 and were the runner-up in 2023 as the No. 4 seed, enter the tournament in the No. four spot … Sixth-seeded Hiram enters the NCAC Tournament for the 11th-consecutive season and will look to advance past the quarterfinal round for the first time in program history.