HARRISONBURG, Va. – James Madison Dukes women’s basketball is headed to the NCAA Tournament, earning a No. 12 seed in the 2026 NCAA Division I Women’s Basketball Tournament and drawing a first-round matchup with fifth-seeded Kentucky Wildcats women’s basketball on Saturday in Morgantown, West Virginia.
The Dukes will compete in Regional 3 in Fort Worth, Texas, where Texas Longhorns women’s basketball holds the No. 1 seed. Game time and television information will be announced later by ESPN.
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James Madison is making its 14th NCAA Tournament appearance and its second under coach Sean O’Regan. Since joining the Sun Belt Conference for the 2022-23 season, O’Regan has led the Dukes to a 105-34 record, including a 58-14 mark in conference play.
The Dukes (26-8, 14-4 Sun Belt) secured the league’s automatic bid by winning the conference tournament championship March 9 with a 69-52 victory over Troy Trojans women’s basketball in Pensacola, Florida. The title was James Madison’s second Sun Belt tournament championship in four seasons in the league.
James Madison enters the tournament on a 12-game winning streak, the seventh-longest active streak in the nation. During that span, the Dukes have held their last nine opponents to 57 points or fewer. The team ranks among the nation’s best on the boards, sitting 13th in rebound margin (+9.0), 14th in rebounds per game (42.2) and 17th in defensive rebounds per game (28.7).
Offensively, the Dukes are averaging 74.8 points per game — the program’s highest scoring average since the 2014-15 season — while shooting 45% from the field, their best mark since the 1990-91 season.
Peyton McDaniel, the Sun Belt tournament’s Most Outstanding Player, leads the team with 18.9 points and 7.5 rebounds per game in her redshirt senior season. McDaniel has totaled 2,310 points and 1,018 rebounds in her career.
Teammate Ashanti Barnes also earned Sun Belt All-Tournament honors and is one of three players nationally averaging at least 14 points and nine rebounds per game while recording 85 or more assists. Bree Robinson, a Sun Belt All-Defensive Team selection, became the third player in program history to record more than 100 assists and 75 steals in a season. She enters the NCAA Tournament tied for the school’s single-season steals record with 82.
Kentucky (23-10, 8-8 in the Southeastern Conference) is coached by Kenny Brooks, the winningest coach in James Madison women’s basketball history. The Wildcats are coming off an 87-74 loss to South Carolina Gamecocks women’s basketball in the quarterfinals of the SEC tournament.
Brooks compiled a 337-122 record during 14 seasons at James Madison and was inducted into the school’s athletics hall of fame. A former player for the Dukes’ men’s program under Hall of Fame coach Lefty Driesell, Brooks appeared in 107 games from 1990-93, scoring 606 points with 216 assists.
Saturday’s game will mark the fourth meeting between James Madison and Kentucky and their first matchup since the 2007-08 season.