The UAA women's basketball team, fresh off a Great Alaska Shootout win over a Division I team and a narrow loss to another D-I team in the tournament championship game, moved up two spots to No. 3 in the nation in the USA Today Top 25 Poll for NCAA Division II teams released Tuesday.
The Seawolves (11-0) beat Pepperdine 94-61 in their Shootout opener last week before falling to Western Kentucky 62-58 in the championship game. The latter game was played by UAA as an exhibition game under the NCAA's discretionary exemption rule.
UAA landed three players on the all-tournament team -- seniors Megan Mullings, Jenna Buchanan and Keiahnna Engel. Mullings leads UAA in scoring (18.1 ppg) and rebounds (5.7) and is shooting 69.2 percent from the field. Buchanan averages 14.3 ppg and 4.1 rpg, and Engel 10.2 ppg and 4.2 rpg.
In the national poll, where UAA received one of the 24 first-place votes, the Seawolves trail only No. 1 Emporia State University of Kansas (6-0), which received 20 first-place votes, and California Baptist University (6-0), which received two first-place votes. The other first-place vote went to No. 11 Union University of Tennessee (6-0).
The Seawolves this week begin defense of their Great Northwest Athletic Conference title. UAA, which also won the conference tournament last season before falling in the first game of the NCAA West Region it hosted, on Thursday plays at Simon Fraser (2-3) and on Saturday plays at Western Washington (3-3).