NCAA Women's Basketball Tournament: How to Watch and Game Thread - #1 Seed UCLA Bruins vs. #16 Seed Southern Jaguars
The top-seeded Bruins open the NCAA Tournament against the SWAC Champion Southern Jaguars.
After a week that began with exuberation, the UCLA Bruins women’s basketball team is ready to begin their Quest For 125 tonight when they host the Southern Jaguars at Pauley Pavilion.
Personally, I’ve been in Pauley hundreds of times — for Bruin basketball games and other sporting events, for other events, for intramural championship games where I was one of the officials, for graduation, and I even took a final on the floor at Pauley once. To be sure, many of those games and events were in Pauley pre-renovation, but plenty have happened since. Despite that, something about the old building feels a little different today.
Yeah, the banners are all still up. With the exception of all the March Madness signage that can be seen everywhere including John and Nell Wooden Court itself, it looks basically the same as it did when I was here a few weeks ago for the UCLA-Southern Cal men’s basketball game.
But something still feels different.
I thought it was me, but I mentioned that to an Athletic Department staff member who agreed that Pauley feels different today.
It can only be the fact that the UCLA women’s basketball team may be on the cusp of something great.
But potential won’t hang a banner in the rafters. The Bruins need to go out and earn it.
That journey begins tonight when they play the Southern Jaguars. Having been able to see part of the Bruins’ practice yesterday and part of their shootaround today, this team is not taking Southern lightly, though it would be easy too given that they are the #16 seed facing the #1 overall seed in the tournament. That should make the Jaguars the 64th overall seed.
Frankly, this game should be over be the end of the first quarter.
But Southern won both the SWAC regular season title and the tournament championship. In the conference championship game, the defeated the Alcorn State Braves by 20 points, 64-44.
The Jaguars are led by Carlos Funchess. Coach Funchess played his college ball at Louisiana-Monroe and later played in the CBA as well as in Venezuela. He joined the staff at Southern as an assistant in 2005 and became the team’s head coach when former head coach Sandy Pugh left the school for Prairie View A&M in 2018.
Funchess has an overall record of 116-99 as a head coach and this is the third time he has led the Jaguars to the NCAA Tournament.
Southern Jaguars’ Last Time Out
On Wednesday night, the Jaguars kicked off the NCAA Women’s Tournament with a First Four game against the UC San Diego Tritons here at Pauley Pavilion. While the Tritons had a historic season in just their second season as a Division I school, the Jaguars proved to be too much as they beat UCSD, 68-56, and Southern earned the school’s first NCAA women’s tournament win.
Soniyah Reed led the Jaguars with 24 points in just 17 minutes off the bench while senior Aniya Gourdine added 17 more. Tionna Lidge was Southern’s other player in double figures with 12 points.
Southern Jaguars’ Starting Five
Funchess will start a lineup with four guards and a center.
Wednesday night’s game not withstanding, there’s only one Jaguar starter who is averaging in double figures for the entire season, and that’s Gourdine. The guard is averaging 12.1 ppg. She also leads the team in steals with 88 and she is tied for the lead among the starters with 4.8 rpg as well.
Senior guard Aleighyah Fontenot averages 7.1 ppg and she is third on the team in assists with 63. The third starting guard for Southern will be junior D'Shantae Edwards. Edwards is averaging 4.7 ppg.
Grad student DaKiyah Sanders will be the fourth starting guard for the Jaguars. She began her career at Alabama State before transferring to Southern for the 2022-23 season. She leads the Jaguars with 114 assists this season.
Tionna Lidge will start at center. The 6’4” tall senior averages 7.3 ppg and she leads the Jaguars in blocks with 35. The fact that Lauren Betts has a three-inch advantage over both Lidge and reserve center Xyllize Harrison should give the Bruins a big edge.
Look for Coach Funchess to use a nine-player rotation with Reed seeing plenty of playing time. She is averaging 10.1 ppg on the season despite playing in a reserve role for all but seven of Southern’s games this season. Other players likely to see time include Jocelyn Tate, who played 24 minutes against UCSD, as well as Sky Castro and Taniya Lawson.
Analysis
The Bruins should move on easily and this game should be over by the end of the first quarter. It’s really that simple.
If the Jaguars look overmatched very quickly in this one, it’s because they are.
Listen to the Game With TMB
Today’s game will be broadcast on ESPN with Dave O’Brien, Christy Winters-Scott, and Holly Rowe on the call. Of course, you can choose to listen to Dave Marcus call the game for the Bruins by listening online. To do that, just right-click on the link below so that you can open up another tab and have it going while you chat in the comments below. Listen to today’s game online.
This is your UCLA women’s basketball vs. Southern Jaguars NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament game thread. Here’s how to watch, listen and stream today’s game:
NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament First Round
Opponents: #1 Seed UCLA Women’s Basketball (30-2) vs. #16 seed Southern Jaguars (21-14)
Series Record: First meeting
When: 7:00 pm PT, Friday, March 21, 2025
Where: Pauley Pavilion, Los Angeles, CA
TV: ESPN with Dave O’Brien, Christy Winters-Scott, and Holly Rowe
Live Stream: WatchESPN.com and the ESPN app
Online Audio: uclabruins.com
Live Stats: NCAA Gamecenter
Tournament Notes:
UCLASouthern (No Notes)
Go Bruins!!!
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Refs were definitely letting Southern get away with some things while making some questionable calls against the Bruins, but not an ideal offense for a bit there.
Hey all! Don't forget to check out TMB on Twitter. Dimitri is Courtside and I'm on the baseline. We'll be tweeting during the game @TheMightyBruin.