ROCHESTER, Mich. – Wrapping up their regular season at 13-16 and 8-12 in conference play, the Oakland Golden Grizzlies earned the 8-seed in the 2023 Barbasol Horizon League Women's Basketball Tournament and will host the 9-seed Wright State Raiders (7-23, 6-14) in a first-round game on Tuesday, February 28 at 7 p.m. at the O'rena.

These two split the two regular season meetings, with each winning at home. Oakland defeated the Raiders, 73-68, on January 15 behind a double-double from freshman Brooke Quarles-Daniels and Wright State topped the Golden Grizzlies, 83-75, on February 23 with graduate student guard Izzy Bolender pouring in a game-high 23 points.

OAKLAND RUNDOWN
Named the 2022-23 Horizon League Freshman of the Year, as well as a Second Team All-League honoree and a member of the All-Freshman Team, on Monday, February 27, Quarles-Daniels paces Oakland at 12.1 points-per-game, a total that is tied for 11^th in the conference and tops among freshmen.

Senior Breanne Beatty and junior Alexis Johnson are also scoring in double figures, averaging 10.4 and 11, respectively.

Part of a season-best 13 3-pointers for the Golden Grizzlies, graduate student guard Raquel Ferrer-Bernad tallied a career-high 18 points on 5-7 from distance in the Saturday, February 25 regular season finale, a road victory over the Northern Kentucky Norse.

As a team, Oakland's 65.4 points-per-game are seventh-best in the Horizon League and the 71.4 points the Golden Grizzlies are allowing is eighth.

SCOUTING THE RAIDERS
Piloted by second-year head coach Kari Hoffman, Wright State is just above Oakland and sixth in the conference at 66 points-per-contest, but the Raiders are last in the league defensively, allowing 77.7.

Phoenix, Arizona senior Bryce Nixon, who has knocked down 70 3-pointers this season at a 39.1 percent clip, is the lone Wright State player scoring in double-digits at 11.6, but classmate Emily Chapman, sophomore Kacee Baumhower and Bolender are all contributing at least 8.9.

The Golden Grizzlies would seem to have an advantage on the glass, as the Raiders average just 27.6 rebounds, the fewest in the conference.

TELEVISION AND LIVE STATS LINKS
Tuesday's first-round action will air live on ESPN+ (subscription required) and can be accessed here. Jake Riepma, Sharese Lucas-Perry and Sydney Cariel will be on the call.

Additionally, the Live Stats are available at this link.

ALL-TIME SERIES
Dating over nine years to Oakland's first season in the Horizon League on January 8, 2014, the Golden Grizzlies and Wright State have battled a total of 23 times with the Raiders holding an 18-5 edge.

Wright State's February 23 victory in Fairborn put an end to a four-game Oakland win streak in the series.

2023 BARBASOL HORIZON LEAGUE TOURNAMENT ACTION
In other Tuesday night first-round action, the 6-seed Purdue Fort Wayne Mastodons will host the 11-seed Detroit Mercy Titans at 7 p.m. and the 7-seed Milwaukee Panthers will welcome in the 10-seed Robert Morris Colonials at 8 p.m.

Tuesday's three winners will advance to the Thursday, March 2 quarterfinals, with the 1-seed Green Bay Phoenix, 2-seed Cleveland State Vikings and 3-seed IUPUI Jaguars awaiting them.

The 4-seed Youngstown State Penguins will also play 5-seed Northern Kentucky in a Thursday quarterfinal.

A PDF of the 2023 Barbasol Horizon League Women's Basketball Tournament bracket is available here.

SEASON-LONG STORYLINES

NEW FACES FOR GOLDEN GRIZZLIES
Faced with the graduations of Kahlaijah Dean, Kayla Luchenbach and Brianna Breedy, who combined to average 28.7 points and 9.9 rebounds last season, the Golden Grizzlies brought in a trio of diversely talented transfers in Raquel Ferrer-Bernad, Alexis Johnson and Linda van Schaik.

A Southfield A&T Warriors graduate, Johnson is a junior forward who played three seasons in Conference USA (C-USA) for the Marshall Thundering Herd, while Ferrer-Bernad is a graduate student point guard who came from a different C-USA program, the Florida International Panthers.

van Schaik, another junior, joined Oakland by way of the Sun Belt Conference's Louisiana-Monroe Warhawks and projects to provide the team with another 3-point shooting threat.

On top of the program's work in the transfer portal, the Golden Grizzlies' 2022 recruiting class features a couple of high-upside players in guard Brooke Quarles-Daniels, a Miss Michigan Basketball candidate a year ago from L'Anse Creuse North, and Lianna Baxter, a 6-foot-1 forward who starred at Oconto and is one of the top-100 scorers in Wisconsin high school history.

BREANNE BEATTY HEADLINES GROUP OF RETURNING PLAYERS
Appearing in all 83 of the program's games over the last three seasons, and starting all but two of them, senior guard/forward Breanne Beatty was named to the Preseason All-Horizon League Second Team on October 18.

The pride of Worthington, Ohio, Beatty is Oakland's leading returning scorer at 9.7 points-per-game in 2021-22.

In addition to Beatty, guards Kennedie Montue and Aaliyah McQueen and forward Miriam Ibezim, all of whom of sophomores, are back with the program and are in line to contribute significantly right from the season's opening tip.

JEFF TUNGATE ENTERS 10^TH SEASON
Named the eighth head coach in program history on July 16, 2013, the 2022-23 campaign is the 10^th with Jeff Tungate at the helm.

Third on the school's all-time wins list with 126, Tungate and four-year veteran assistant Crystal Davis made some changes to the coaching staff ahead of this season, bringing in Golden Grizzly Hall of Famer and former Mercyhurst Lakers head coach Deanna Richard and Tim Webb, who has extensive coaching experience at both the high school and collegiate levels in Michigan, as assistant coaches.