NOTES: March Madness Begins Friday For Truman Women

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KIRKSVILLE, Mo. – The Bulldog women will face #5-seed Lindenwood in the final quarterfinal game on Friday afternoon at the 2020 Great Lakes Valley Conference Championship Tournament. The tournament will be played at the First Community Arena in the Vadalabene Center on the campus of Southern Illinois University Edwardsville.

The winner will move on to face the winner of Thursday's #1/8 game between the league's undisputed and undefeated regular season champion Drury and Maryville University. The semifinals will be on Saturday and championship game and the league's automatic berth into the NCAA Division II Tournament will be on Sunday.

Truman actually finished second in terms of wins and losses in the league at 16-4 but was dropped to the number four seed based on the point rating system that ranks the teams on results throughout the season. The Bulldogs went 12-0 against teams not in the tournament field, with seven of those wins coming against teams with sub .250 winning percentages. The Bulldogs had a 4-4 record against the seven other tournament teams with two coming against #8 Maryville, a 30-point road win against #2-seed Southern Indiana and a 16-point road win over #6 Indianapolis.

Outside of Drury, the Bulldogs get one of the hottest teams in the GLVC in Lindenwood. The Lions have won five straight and seven of eight since beating the Bulldogs in Pershing Arena 72-65 back of February 6^th. Lindenwood will be making their inaugural appearance in Edwardsville as they are in the first year of joining the GLVC. They were in the Mid-America Intercollegiate Athletics Association prior and were in the semifinals of their tournament last year and won the MIAA tournament in 2018.

Truman got to 20 wins for the second straight year after sweeping a pair of road games in the final weekend of the regular season. The Bulldogs rallied from 11 down against Maryville and won in overtime 84-83 on Thursday then had a big first half, allowed Missouri S&T to creep back before putting the Lady Miners away for good in the fourth in a 65-52 win on Saturday.

Junior Katie Jaseckas had a "Player of the Week" worthy performance during the two games but was overshadowed by the league's Player of the Year in Drury's Hailey Diestelcamp. Jaseckas needed all 29 and 19 of her career high points and rebounds respectively against Maryville in the overtime win. Her put back with 3.4 seconds left in the extra period stood up as the game winner. Then on Saturday, she knocked down a career-high four three-pointers and scored 16 of her 23 points in the first half before being called upon in the fourth during a run by S&T to squelch a comeback. For the week, she averaged 26 points and 13.5 rebounds while adding five blocks in 70 valuable minutes of play. Diestelcamp scored a GLVC-record 53 points in 33 minutes in a 48-point win over Rockhurst on Saturday.

Jaseckas heads into the postseason as Truman's leading scorer at 14.2 points per game. She has set personal bests this season in points scored (369), three-pointers made (26), assists (19), blocks (52) and a low in turnovers (22). KJ enters the tournament with 938 career points, 99 blocked shots and 50 three-pointers made.

Since the start of February, Jaseckas has averaged 18 points, 8.3 rebounds per game while shooting 60.2% from the field and has been the team's top three-point shooter at 43.8% on 14 makes from distance.

Senior Sloane Totta missed the first two games of her Truman career last week but enters the tournament with a 12.8 points per game average and was fourth in the conference in assists per game at 4.33. Totta had played and started the previous 110 games for the Bulldogs and has scored 1,050 points, with 348 assists and 98 steals. Her assist mark puts her third all-time at Truman and her 119 this season is in a tie for ninth.

Hannah Belanger was the top scoring freshman in the GLVC with 340 points (12.6/game) and was fourth overall and fifth in three-point shooting (.427/.424) and third in three-pointers made (2.37/2.50) this season. She is one of four players to play in all 27 games this season and will have a shot at cracking the Bulldog top 10 in season three-pointers but also setting a new Truman freshman three-point makes mark. To crack the top 10, she will need five more three pointers to tie Candace McGee in 2008 and to tie the freshman record, needs three to match Wendi Sobaski's 1998 total of 67. Her .427 three-point shooting percentage is a solid fifth in Bulldog single-season lore and would be a freshman record at the school.

Redshirt sophomore Maddie Re has been on of the most durable Bulldogs this season and is the team's leader in boards. Re averages 9.7 rebounds per night and her 263 total rebounds is ninth all-time in a season. Re is third in the conference in boards per game and is fifth in field goal percentage at 55.1%. She leads the team with eight double-doubles this season and has 13 for her two-year career.

Sophomore Katey Klucking is second on the team in three-pointers made with 54 and has started 26 of 27 games. Her lone non-start was on senior day. She is second in assists with 80, has had three, 10-rebound games this year and four, 20-point games this season. She enters the tournament with a 9.5 scoring clip.

Junior Tiffany Davenport has started the last two in place of Totta and has been the first off the bench in the other 25 games this season. Davenport has 61 assists with 25 three-pointers and 5.9 points per game. In her last four games, Davenport has averaged over 30 minutes per and 8.7 points per night.

Junior Maya Mouton has minutes in 26 games this year with 10.9 minutes per. She has averaged 2.5 points in those outings. Freshman Alex Wiese has made one start in 21 games and has scored 2.0 points per game. Freshman Hannah Pinkston had season-highs in rebounds (6), assists (3) and points (8) last week and has appeared in 22 games thus far.

Fellow newcomers Elle Weltha and Nicole Dorn have played in 17 and 13 games respectively with Weltha making 10 of her 18 field goal attempts and Dorn grabbing four steals with three assists.

Truman Season At-A-Glance:

The 20-wins this season was the seventh time the program has hit that benchmark. The team set a school-record last season with 23 wins. It is the fifth 20-win season since the 2013 campaign.
The 16 conference wins was a program best. The previous mark was 13 wins (13-5) set last season. It was the 10^th straight season in which Truman has won 10 or more league games and it was the highest ever finish in the conference standings for a Bulldog program. In 2018, Truman was second in the west division but sixth in the conference seeds for the tournament.
The previous highest finish for a Truman team was fourth that happened five other times (1988, 1991, 2000, 2013 and 2019).
The team's 220 three-pointers made is third in a single-season at Truman. The team hit 236 (31 games) in 2019 and 235 (31 games) in 2014.
The squad is also tied for ninth in single-season assists with 432, matching last year's total.

Scouting The Lions:
Lindenwood was 7-5 following a three-point road loss at Indianapolis on January 16 but has since gone 11-3 and won five straight heading into the conference tournament…Kallie Bildner, a "Player of the Year" candidate, has led the Lions in scoring and rebounding in nearly every game this season and has been over 20 points in 10 of the last 11 games played…she was second in the overall GLVC scoring race with 531 points (22.1) behind Maryville's Mary Barton (665/24.6) and ahead of Hailey Diestelkamp (614/21.2)…she is the top rebounder at 11.8 per night and shoots 61% from the field…fellow senior Lindsay Medlen leads the conference in assists with 5.72 per game…the Lions are second in scoring average a 77.9, 13^th in defense at 72.4 allowed and third in free throw shooting at 74.2%.

History With Lindenwood:
This will be only the sixth time Truman and Lindenwood will face each other on the hard court and first in postseason play. The Lions have won the last two meetings, including a neutral site game in Springfield, Missouri in 2018 (94-83) and this year's matchup in Pershing Arena 72-65.

In that game, Lindenwood grabbed a 12-point lead in the first quarter but the Bulldogs fought back to lead by seven after the first basket of the fourth quarter 50-43. Kallie Bildner had a personal 7-0 run over a two-minute span to put the Lions up 65-60 and they would hold on for the win. Sloane Totta scored a season-high 26 points for Truman while Bildner had 20 and 16 rebounds for the Lions.

Against The Tournament Field:
Truman was 4-4 against the other seven teams in the tournament field. In seed order here are the results:
Drury – Lost at Drury 77-56 on February 20.
So. Indiana – Won at USI 89-59 on January 23.
Lewis – Lost in Kirksville 80-79 on January 18.
Lindenwood – Lost in Kirksville 72-65 on February 6.
Indianapolis – Won at UINDY 69-53 on February 15.
Bellarmine – Lost at BU 72-62 on February 13
Maryville – Won in Kirksville 78-77on January 11, won in OT at MU 84-83 on February 27.

Truman GLVC Tournament History:
The Bulldogs have qualified for the GLVC Tournament in each of their seven seasons as a league member. They have advanced to the semifinals in both 2014 and 2019 and won the championship in their only appearance in the title game in 2014 defeating Maryville 58-45.
In all, this is the 10^th straight conference tournament appearance for the Bulldogs and 19^th overall tournament appearance dating back to the MIAA days of 1988.

Up Next:
The NCAA will announce the field for the 64-team Division II national championship tournament on Sunday evening. The Bulldogs moved up to ninth in the last regional rankings heading into selection Sunday. A conference tournament championship will give Truman the league' automatic qualifier for the field, if not, they will have to wait and see if they will be one of the five "at-large" teams selected.

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Players Mentioned

#24 Tiffany Davenport: G; 5' 6"; Junior

#54 Katie Jaseckas: F; 6' 2"; Junior

#33 Katey Klucking: G; 5' 9"; Sophomore

#34 Maya Mouton: F; 6' 3"; Junior

#23 Maddie Re: F; 6' 1"; Redshirt Sophomore

#4 Sloane Totta: G; 5' 9"; Senior

#13 Hannah Belanger: G; 5' 8"; Freshman

#15 Nicole Dorn: G; 5' 10"; Redshirt Freshman

#10 Hannah Pinkston: G; 5' 10"; Freshman

#1 Alex Wiese: F; 6' 0"; Freshman

Players Mentioned

#24 Tiffany Davenport
: 5' 6"; Junior
: G

#54 Katie Jaseckas
: 6' 2"; Junior
: F

#33 Katey Klucking
: 5' 9"; Sophomore
: G

#34 Maya Mouton
: 6' 3"; Junior
: F

#23 Maddie Re
: 6' 1"; Redshirt Sophomore
: F

#4 Sloane Totta
: 5' 9"; Senior
: G

#13 Hannah Belanger
: 5' 8"; Freshman
: G

#15 Nicole Dorn
: 5' 10"; Redshirt Freshman
: G

#10 Hannah Pinkston
: 5' 10"; Freshman
: G

#1 Alex Wiese
: 6' 0"; Freshman
: F