INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. (JMU Athletics) – James Madison punched its ticket to the Big Dance, earning a No. 12 seed in the 2026 NCAA Women’s Basketball Championship, where it will face fifth-seeded Kentucky in the opening round in Morgantown, W.Va., on Saturday, March 21.
JMU will compete in Regional 3 – Fort Worth, where Texas holds the top seed. Tipoff time and television information for the matchup will be announced at a later time by ESPN.
JMU is making its 14th appearance in the NCAA Championship, including twice under the direction of Head Coach Sean O’Regan. Since the Dukes joined the Sun Belt Conference ahead of the 2022-23 season, O’Regan has guided the Dukes to a 105-34 (.755) record with a 58-14 (.806) mark against conference opponents.
The Dukes (26-8, 14-4 Sun Belt) earned an automatic bid into the NCAA Championship after capturing their second Sun Belt Conference Championship on Monday, March 9, with a 69-52 victory over Troy in Pensacola, Fla. The win marked JMU’s second Sun Belt tournament title in its four seasons in the conference.
JMU enters March Madness with 12 consecutive wins, the seventh-longest win streak in the nation, holding its last nine opponents to 57 points or fewer. One of the most formidable rebounding teams in the country, the Dukes rank 13th in rebound margin (+9.0), 14th in rebounds per game (42.18), and 17th in defensive rebounds per game (28.7).
On the offensive end, the Dukes’ 74.8 points per game this season is their highest scoring output by the program since the 2014-15 season, while their 45.0% shooting clip is their best since the 1990-91 season when JMU posted a 45.1% clip.
They are led by the Sun Belt Championship’s Most Outstanding Player, Peyton McDaniel. McDaniel is firing on all cylinders in her redshirt senior season, averaging 18.9 points and 7.5 rebounds per game to reach 2,310 points and 1,018 rebounds in her career. Fellow Sun Belt All-Tournament Team member Ashanti Barnes is also in elite company as one of three players in the nation to average at least 14 points and nine rebounds per game, while dishing 85 or more assists. Bree Robinson – a Sun Belt All-Defensive Team honoree – became the third Duke in program history to record over 100 assists and 75 steals in the same season, tying the single-season steals record with 82 heading into the NCAA Tournament.
The Wildcats (23-10, 8-8 SEC) are led by Kenny Brooks, the all-time winningest head coach in the storied history of James Madison women’s basketball. UK is coming off an 87-74 loss to South Carolina in the quarterfinals of the 2026 Southeastern Conference Women’s Basketball Tournament.
Brooks went 337-122 (.734) in 14 seasons at the helm of the program. The JMU Athletics Hall of Fame inductee was a four-year letterwinner for the Dukes’ men’s team under Hall of Fame coach Lefty Driesell. He ranks fourth in career 3-point percentage at 41% (82-200). The two-year team captain played in 107 games with 606 points, 216 assists, and 128 rebounds. This will be the fourth meeting between the Dukes and Wildcats, and the first time facing each other since the 2007-08 season.
— JMU Athletics —
