2026 WBB National Tournament Press Guide (link to come)
Tournament Bracket | 2026 National Qualifiers
SEWARD, Neb. – Madison, S.D., will be the next stop for Concordia University, Nebraska Women’s Basketball. As part of the NAIA selection show on Thursday (March 5), the Bulldogs learned they had earned a No. 6 seed while assigned to a four-team pod hosted by Dakota State University for first/second round action at the NAIA Women’s Basketball National Championship. Concordia has qualified for the national tournament for the 24th time in program history.
The occasion will mark the 17th national tournament trip in 20 seasons for Head Coach Drew Olson. After a year absence in 2025, the Bulldogs will return to the national stage this month. Concordia sports an overall record of 23-7 and is an at-large national tournament qualifier.
Said Olson at the end of the regular season, “Our identity and how this team was formed has a lot to do with last year and the growing pains that we went through. I wanted to set a tone of aggressiveness and confidence (in the offseason). We knew we wanted to get back to a pressing style, something that was really affective for us in years past. I felt like we had the personnel to be better in our press this year. We wanted to establish a confidence about our group … The reason why we’re having the success that we are is because we have a group that has grown up and a group that worked really hard this past summer to develop their games.”
Dakota State Pod
--Site: Madison, S.D. (DSU Fieldhouse)
Friday, March 13 (first round)
Time TBA – (3) Dakota State vs. (14) Grand View
Time TBA – (6) Concordia vs. (11) Bethel (Kan.)
Saturday, March 14 (second round)
Time TBA – First round winners
The tournament résumé for the Bulldogs features seven wins over fellow national qualifying teams: Briar Cliff (three), Hastings, MidAmerica Nazarene University (Kan.) and Northwestern (twice). Concordia has played 13 games this season against the qualifying field. In the final NAIA RPI, the Bulldogs landed at 27th and a strength of schedule rated 52nd. In the era of one NAIA division (2020-21 to the present), Concordia’s highest seed was a No. 3 in 2024. The Bulldogs were ranked 16th overall heading into the 2021 national tournament (led by then senior Taylor Cockerill) and were then given seedings of No. 9 in 2022 and No. 8 in 2023.
Concordia’s pod at Dakota State will include the host and third-seeded Trojans in addition to No. 11 seed Bethel College (Kan.) and No. 14 seed Grand View University (Iowa). The Bulldogs traveled to Dakota State early in the 2024-25 season and came away with a 64-54 win. The Trojans qualified for nationals this season as Frontier Conference regular season champions. Meanwhile, Bethel qualified as Kansas Collegiate Athletic Conference tournament championship seed No. 2 and Grand View received an auto bid as Heart of America Athletic Conference regular season runner up.
Season Summary
The 2025-26 Bulldogs turned around last season’s results while putting themselves in position to earn at-large berth to the national tournament. Concordia stands at 23-7 overall with an NAIA RPI of 27th. According to the NAIA’s official calculation, the Bulldogs have played the nation’s 54th most challenging schedule. Concordia was placed at No. 6 in the Midwest Region ARC Ratings released on Wednesday. Olson’s squad began the season at 9-0 and has been ranked as high as No. 9 in the NAIA coaches’ poll.
Balance has been a theme for the Bulldogs in 2025-26. Six Concordia players are averaging at least 7.7 points per game: Kristin Vieselmeyer (11.1), Ayla Roth (11.0), Bree Bunting (9.4), Sammy Leu (8.9), Raelyn Kelty (8.6) and JJ Jones (7.7). Each of them were honored with GPAC All-Conference awards on Wednesday with first team accolades going to Vieselmeyer and second team distinction going to Roth. The other four were tabbed with honorable mention status. Vieselmeyer is now a two-time All-GPAC award winner who will enter the national tournament having scored 968 career points.
The full-court press has played a major role in the Bulldogs’ success. On the NAIA national leaderboards, Concordia ranks fourth in steals per game (16.5) and fourth in turnovers forced per game (26.5). The Bulldogs have not dropped a single game outside of Quad 1. Concordia has won three times over teams that were ranked in the top 25 at the time the games were played, having defeated No. 18 Arizona Christian University, No. 13 MidAmerica Nazarene University (Kan.) and No. 13 Briar Cliff.
The 16 teams that emerge from the first/second round sites will advance to play at the Tyson Events Center in Sioux City, Iowa. More information about the tournament can be found HERE.
National Tournament Facts
· In its first 23 appearances at the national championships, Concordia has posted a record of 40-21 with seven journeys to at least the national semifinals (three national championship game appearances). The Bulldogs are 16-7 in first-round games. All of the program’s national tournament berths have come since 1992 – the same year the NAIA split into two divisions for basketball. The 2019-20 season marked the final one featuring two divisions. The 2019-20 squad had garnered the No. 1 overall seed in a tournament that was shut down in the middle of the first round due to COVID-19.
· Six of the 16 players on Concordia’s national tournament roster have prior in-game national tournament experience. That list includes Joclyn Bassett, Bree Bunting, JJ Jones, Raelyn Kelty, Sammy Leu and Kristin Vieselmeyer. The upperclassmen players were part of the 2023-24 squad that won twice at home in the first/second rounds of the national tournament and advanced to the NAIA Round of 16 in Sioux City. Vieselmeyer appeared on the national stage in both 2023 and 2024. In the 2023 NAIA first round win (77-50) over Columbia College (Mo.), Vieselmeyer posted 12 points and five rebounds.
· Head Coach Drew Olson has been at the controls for each of Concordia’s past 17 national tournament appearances (including 2026). His record at the national tournament stands at 29-14 with five trips to the final four, including three national championship game appearances (2015, 2018, 2019). The program raised its first-ever national championship banner in March 2019 when it defeated No. 2 Southeastern University (Fla.), 67-59. Olson has won more national tournament games than any coach in school history (men’s or women’s programs).
· During the 2025-26 season to date, the Bulldogs have played 13 games against teams that are included in the national tournament bracket. Concordia has defeated fellow national qualifiers Briar Cliff (three), Hastings, MidAmerica Nazarene University (Kan.) and Northwestern (twice). The Bulldogs went wire-to-wire with Dordt, one of the NAIA’s four No. 1 seeds, in the GPAC semifinals.
· Olson became the program’s fifth coach to lead Concordia to the national tournament when he made his first appearance in 2008. Past coaches to take the Bulldogs to nationals were Todd Voss (three), Mark Lemke (two), Micah Parker (one) and Carl Everts (one). Voss guided two squads that reached the national semifinals.
· Back on Jan. 21, Olson picked up his 500th career victory (20th season) as head coach of the Bulldogs. Olson also reached 300 career GPAC league wins this season. Two seasons earlier, Olson surpassed Grant Schmidt for the most head coaching victories in the history of Concordia Athletics. Schmidt went 445-276 while leading the Bulldog Men’s Basketball program from 1989 through 2012. Schmidt formerly served as Director of Athletics and hired Olson as women’s basketball coach prior to the start of the 2006-07 season.