FAIRFIELD, Conn. – The Sacred Heart University women's basketball team opens the 2024 NCAA Tournament with a First Four game against Big South Champion Presbyterian on Wednesday, March 20, with a 7 p.m. showdown at South Carolina's Colonial Life Arena. The winner of Wednesday's game will face the No. 1-seeded Gamecock on at 2 p.m. on Friday, March 22. 

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OPENING TIP

• The Pioneers and Blue Hose will play for the first time ever on Wednesday. 
• Sacred Heart will play its sixth NCAA Tournament game, as SHU holds a 1-4 record in March Madness. SHU owns a victory over Southern, earning the first NCAA victory in NEC history last year at Stanford. 
• The Pioneers return to the NCAA Tournament after winning its second consecutive NEC Tournament, handing Le Moyne a 69-48 defeat on Sunday afternoon. 
• Sunday's win is Sacred Heart's 15th straight, the team's longest since winning 21 in a row in the 2008-09 campaign. 
• The Pioneers' defense has led them to their last three wins, as they held Saint Francis, Merrimack and Le Moyne to 48 or less points. SFU shot the best at 39.1%, while SHU held Merrimack to 30.8% and Le Moyne to 29.3%.
• Ny'Ceara Pryor led the way for the Pioneers with 18 points, six rebounds, six assists and five steals. She averaged 23.0 points, 6.3 rebounds and 5.3 assists per game on her way to being named the NEC Tournament MVP for a second straight season. 
• Amelia Wood was next on the team with 15 points and seven boards, earning a spot on the All-Tournament Team. 
• Sajada Bonner also crossed double-figures with 10 points and five rebounds.

POSTSEASON HISTORY

• The Pioneers entered the NEC Tournament as the regular-season champions for the first time since 2015-16.  
• SHU has won the league's regular-season title seven times in program history and has won the regular-season and tournament championships in the same season four times.
• Sacred Heart won its first-ever back-to-back NEC championship. 
• The Pioneers have qualified for 24 of the last 25 NEC Tournaments. 
• SHU is 7-1 in its last eight NEC quarterfinal games.
• The Pioneers are 3-3 in their six NEC semifinals under Head Coach Jessica Mannetti, winning last season and in 2016, the last time the team won the regular-season championship. 
• SHU is 28-25 all-time in the postseason. 
• In their history, the Pioneers have won five NEC titles (2006, 2009, 2012, 2023, 2024) and made five appearances in the NCAA Tournament (2006, 2009, 2012, 2023, 2024) and three in the WNIT Tournament (2013, 2016, 2017).
• The Pioneers are playing in their second consecutive NCAA Tournament First Four game after defeating Southern in their historic tournament run last year, marking the first NCAA Tournament win for an NEC team. 
• SHU suffered a 92-49 loss to Stanford in the First Round. 
• In their history, the Pios are 1-4 in the NCAA Tournament.

ANOTHER RECORD FOR NY
No stranger to setting records in her short but storied career, Pryor has added another Pioneer record to her resume. The sophomore guard broke Amanda Pape's single-season scoring record in the NEC Title Game against Le Moyne. Pape scored 620 points in 2006-07. Pryor is up to 624 this season with at least one more game left. Pryor maintains a career-best 18.9 points per game average this year.  

SCOUTING THE BLUE HOSE
The Blue Hose ride into the NCAA Tournament playing their best basketball. Presbyterian punched its ticket to March Madness by winning the Big South Conference Tournament. The Blue Hose won eight of their last nine games, taking all three games in their conference tournament as the five seed. Presbyterian won its first-ever appearance in the Big South Tournament, handing No. 3 Radford a 60-37 defeat Sunday. Second Team All-Big South selections Bryanna Brady and Tilda Sjökvist lead the way for the Blue Hose with identical 12.4 points per game averages. Brady also leads the team with 4.6 rebounds and 0.8 blocks per game. Sjökvist leads the team in minutes (33.9) and assists per game (3.5).  

ALL-TIME SERIES VS. PRESBYTERIAN
SHU will meet Presbyterian for the first time on Wednesday. The Blue Hose join Puerto Rico-Mayaguez, UCF and NJIT as the only teams SHU has not played before this season.