The NCAA women’s basketball season has crossed over the halfway point.
Eyes are starting to turn toward postseason basketball as teams establish resumes worthy of a March Madness appearance.
Among them is Oregon State, which sits near the top of the West Coast Conference and is 14-6 overall (6-1 WCC) heading into the Jan. 22 home conference matchup with Gonzaga (also 14-6, 6-1)
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Leading the charge for the Beavers this season is junior guard Jenna Villa, a Washington native who’s averaging a team-high 15.9 points per game.
Next to her are a pair of guards, Kennedie Shuler and Tiara Bolden, who are both averaging above 10 points per game. Shuler dishes out a team-high 5.6 assists per game, which is among the 25 best individual tallies in the nation.
Wins against Illinois, Utah State, Colorado State and a slew of WCC competition bolster the Oregon State resume, while the Beavers have losses to teams including Vanderbilt, No. 4 team in the USA Today’s coaches poll, Oregon and Arizona State.
How do the Beavers’ March Madness hopes stack up to the rest of the country?
Oregon State’s Jenna Villa, left, battles Oregon’s Mia Jacobs during a Dec. 3 game at Matthew Knight Arena in Eugene. The Beavers are 14-6 heading into a Jan. 22 home game against Gonzaga.
Oregon State March Madness projections vary
The clearest path to March Madness for any team is to win the conference tournament. In 2025, Oregon State won the WCC tournament to earn an automatic bid to the dance.
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This season, a competitive field of WCC opposition will challenge the Beavers to retain the throne.
Gonzaga, Oregon State and Santa Clara boast overall records securely above .500, while Loyola Marymount and Portland also hold strong conference records midway through the season.
All will be decided March 5-10 in Las Vegas, when the WCC hosts its conference championship. It’s a strong field, and bracketologists have conflicting predictions for which school will stand above the rest in the West Coast Conference.
In one prediction made by CBS’ Connor Groel, Gonzaga claims the WCC title to earn an automatic bid as a 12 seed. In another by ESPN’s Charlie Creme, the Beavers take WCC gold and an automatic bid as a 13 seed.
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The WCC, notably, didn’t receive an at-large bid in 2025 but did in 2024 with Gonzaga.
According to the NCAA, at-large bids are decided by a committee with a 10-step process that gathers a list of nominations, which is followed by an eight-step process that then ranks those nominations. Restrictions to nominees are lenient, but teams must hold a .500-or-better overall record.
Oregon State was 84th in the NCAA NET rankings, a tool used in the selection process, through Jan. 20 games.
Oregon State coach Scott Rueck celebrates his team win against Portland in the 2025 West Coast Conference tournament championship in Las Vegas. The Beavers are competing this season for another NCAA tournament berth.
Oregon State women’s March Madness history
Oregon State has become a familiar face in the field of 68 teams for the past decade or so under coach Scott Rueck.
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Since 2014, the Beavers have appeared in the Big Dance nine times. Of those nine, five have resulted in Sweet Sixteen appearances. Of those five, three ended in the Elite Eight.
The 2016 OSU team made it to the Final Four.
When Rueck took over the program in 2010, something changed in Corvallis.
Rueck’s teams have been ranked in the top 25 in 10 different seasons. Rueck was named Pac-12 Conference coach of the year five times, he’s been nominated for numerous national coach of the year awards and OSU has won the Pac-12 three times.
Prior to Rueck’s tenure, the Beavers had only made March Madness five times in school history.
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Landon Bartlett covers Oregon State and high school sports for the Statesman Journal. He can be reached at LBartlett@statesmanjournal.com or on X or Instagram @bartlelo.
This article originally appeared on Salem Statesman Journal: Is Oregon State women’s basketball tracking for March Madness?
