No. 2 seed Lady Bears hosting NCAA 1st- and 2nd-round games

For the fourth time in five years, the Lady Bears will host NCAA first- and second-round games at the Ferrell Center.

Coming off a fifth straight sweep of the both the Big 12 regular season and tournament titles, Baylor is a No. 2 seed in this year’s NCAA tournament and will face Northwestern State in the first round Friday (1:30 p.m. on ESPN2). The winner of that game will face either Northwestern or Arkansas on Sunday.

[LINKS: BaylorBears.com Tournament Central || Ticket info || Complete bracket]

Northwestern State went 15-14 during the regular season and finished sixth in the Southland Conference but won the SLC tournament for a second straight year to earn the league’s automatic NCAA bid. Junior Janelle Perez, a first-team all-conference guard, leads the Lady Demons in scoring (15.2 ppg) and assists (3.5 apg).

The Lady Bears, meanwhile, are 7-1 in NCAA postseason games played in Waco under head coach Kim Mulkey, with the lone loss coming all the way back in 2002. Despite relying mostly on underclassmen this season, the Lady Bears enter postseason play with a 30-3 record and ranked fifth in the nation.

Baylor is led by first-team All-American Nina Davis, a sophomore forward and the 2015 Big 12 Player of the Year, and junior guard Niya Johnson, who leads the nation in assists per game. The team’s top five leading scorers are all either freshmen or juniors, and the roster includes just one senior — Sune Agbuke, who has actually already graduated and is now in her fourth quarter at Baylor Law School.

Get your tickets now and turn out this weekend to support this young Baylor team!

Sic ’em, Lady Bears!