From Shania Twain to a magical Pac-12 title run, 5 things to know about Washington State

The FGCU women's basketball team will get a very unfamiliar opponent in the first round of the NCAA Tournament as the 12th-seeded Eagles will face Pac-12 champion Washington State, the 5 seed, in a first matchup between the two teams at Villanova, Penn. at 2:30 p.m. on Saturday.

After the Eagles' win Saturday night over Liberty in the ASUN final, Women's Bracketologist Charlie Creme had FGCU pegged as an 11 seed facing No. 6 Michigan in Baton Rouge. He was right with his seeding for Michigan but UNLV was given the 11th seed.

NCAA Tournament: FGCU women get a 12 seed, will face No. 5 Washington State

ASUN Final:Back to the Big Dance: FGCU women beat Liberty to win ASUN crown, advance to NCAAs

ASUN Semifinal:With offense struggling, FGCU women use defense to advance to ASUN title game

Here's a look at Washington State (23-10) and what challenges FGCU (32-3) will face against the Cougars.

Washington State had an incredible Pac-12 run

Like FGCU, Washington State qualified automatically as a conference champion, but that's where the similarities end. While the Eagles were the top seed in the ASUN with a 17-1 conference record, the Cougars were the Pac-12's seven seed with a 9-9 record.

Washington State then made an improbable run in the conference tournament, claiming the school's first conference title by winning four games in five days, beating No. 10 seed California 61-49, No. 2 seed Utah 66-58, No. 3 seed Colorado 61-49 and finally No. 5 UCLA 65-61 on Sunday, March 5. They are the lowest seed to win the conference title.

“I would have never thought we could do it,” fifth-year coach Kamie Ethridge told the AP after the game. “I don't even think when I took the job I thought this was possible in this kind of a league.”

Still looking for NCAA Tournament success

Ethridge inherited a program that hadn’t been to the NCAA Tournament in three decades but the Cougars have now made the NCAAs three years in a row. This season also marks just the fourth time Washington State will play in the NCAAs but it is still looking for its first win, being a one-and-done all three times previously.

They were a No. 8 seed last year and lost to No. 9 seed Kansas State 50-40. In 2021, the Cougs were a No. 8 seed but fell to No. 9 seed South Florida 57-53.

Their only previous trip to the Big Dance was in the 1990-91 season when the Cougars made it as an 11 seed and lost in the first round that time as well, falling to No. 6 Northwestern 82-62.

Watch out for Charlisse Leger-Walker

Charlisse Leger-Walkerwas voted the Pac-12 Tournament's Most Outstanding Player after she averaged 19 points per game. The 5-foot-10 guard's 76 points scored in the tournament are the most in tournament history.

The New Zealand native scored at least 15 points in all four of Washington State's wins and scored 23 points against the Bruins in the final. Leger-Walker shot 7-for-11 from the field, sank five 3-pointers, and also grabbed seven rebounds in the championship.

For the season she leads the Cougars with 18.1 points per game and 4.2 assists while earning first-team All-Pac 12 honors.

Bella Murekatete, a 6-foot-3 center, added 21 in the championship game and also made the all-tournament team. The senior averaged 16.3 points and 7.3 rebounds during the Cougars' title run and is the only other Washington State player averaging double digits in points this season with 13.9 plus 7.1 rebounds per game.

Cougars powered by Shania Twain

The Cougars adopted Shaina Twain's 1997 hit song, "Man! I Feel Like a Woman!" as their unofficial anthem this season.

Cougars sports information director Chris Caskey told ESPN that the team loves to sing karaoke, and Twain's song is fifth-year senior Ula Motuga's favorite. She used it as her entrance music during the program's Midnight Madness in the fall.

The team embraced the song during the season, playing it in the locker room before games and after big wins. It got to the point where Motuga would come into the pregame locker room and say "let's go, girls!" -- the famous opening lyrics -- after which the group would sing the first verse and chorus to let off steam before tip, according to ESPN.

After beating Colorado in the Pac-12 semifinals, Motuga invited "Auntie Shania Twain" to come to the championship game in Las Vegas and perform the song with their coach in the locker room. Twain responded that she was in Switzerland, but that she would be watching from afar and then Tweeted congratulations to Washington State after they beat UCLA.

NET rankings, polls have this as a close matchup

According to the NCAA NET rankings, this should be a pretty even matchup.

The NCAA Evaluation Tool or NET takes into account game results, strength of schedule, game location, scoring margin, net offensive and defensive efficiency, and the quality of wins and losses.

FGCU has a NET ranking of 36, while Washington State is 30. In the latest USA Today 25 Poll, FGCU is actually higher, being ranked 23 while the Cougars are the second highest team also receiving votes, while in the AP Top 25 Poll, Washington State is 22 and FGCU is the fifth highest team also receiving votes.

This article originally appeared on Fort Myers News-Press: Scouting Washington State, FGCU's first-round NCAA basketball opponent