Alva Review-Courier -

RUSSELLVILLE, Ark. – With the 2017-18 Great American Conference basketball regular season complete, the attention shifts to the GAC Championships set to begin on Thursday, March 1, from the Bruin Fieldhouse in Bartlesville, Oklahoma.

As the regular season Great American Conference Champions, the SWOSU Lady Bulldogs have claimed the No. 1 seed in the tournament. Their opponent in the tournament quarterfinals will be Oklahoma Baptist, who is making their inaugural appearance in the GAC Tournament in their first year of NCAA postseason eligibility.

The Lady Bulldogs are 11-4 all-time at the Great American Conference Tournament, including a record of 5-1 in the tournament quarterfinals. SWOSU has won the tournament twice – 2012 and 2014 – and advanced to the championship game four times, most recently in 2016. Last season, the Lady Dawgs defeated Southern Nazarene in the opening round before falling to Arkansas Tech in the semifinals.

SWOSU enters the GAC Tournament with a record of 25-3 overall, the most single-season wins by the program as an NCAA Division II institution. The Lady Bulldogs were ranked atop the first two NCAA Division II Central Region rankings and they will find out Wednesday if they maintain the top spot heading into the conference tournament. The winner of the GAC Tournament will earn an automatic berth into the Central Regional Championships, which begins the following weekend and is hosted by the top team in the region.

Each game of the 2018 GAC Tournament will be streamed live on the GAC Sports Network with Joey McWilliams and Michael Westbrook calling all of the action. For complete coverage and additional information, visit the Basketball Championship Central page on the GAC's official website.