By Mason Nesbitt, Sports Information Director
One Mustang women’s basketball player said Wednesday felt like a game day.

Soon it felt like the MacArthur Center’s trophy room was home to a nail-biting, barn-burner, each bracket revelation pushing The Master’s University’s postseason chances closer to the brink.

Point guard Sabrina Thompson squeezed forward Anika Neuman’s arm, each Mustang glued to a TV showing the NAIA Division 1 tournament’s reveal show. The Mustangs finally heard their names as one of the last four games announced. There were fist pumps, hugs and one chest bump.

Master’s will play No. 1-seed Freed-Hardeman (Tenn.) on March 14 at 3 p.m. PST in Billings, Montana, in the first round of the NAIA Division 1 women’s basketball championship.

“There was some drama there, wasn’t there?” said Master’s coach Dan Waldeck.

The Mustangs earned the No. 8 seed in the Liston Bracket after going 19-10 overall and 7-7 in Golden State Athletic Conference play during the regular season.

Freed-Hardeman went 29-4 overall and 22-2 in the American Midwest Conference. The Lions beat Master’s in the second round of last year’s tournament, 79-58, before falling in the quarterfinals.

The 2018 rematch pits a veteran Freed-Hardeman squad against a Mustang team that’s among the nation’s youngest, featuring no seniors and only three juniors. Waldeck said before the season he felt TMU would be vastly improved by year’s end. Wednesday, he said he felt Master’s was playing its best basketball of the season when it beat No. 22 Menlo in the first round of last week’s GSAC tournament before pushing No. 4 Westmont in a semifinal loss. Then Waldeck corrected himself.

“We’re playing better,” he said.

Waldeck hopes Master’s will play its best when it makes its sixth straight NAIA tournament appearance next week. The coach said he was pretty confident entering Wednesday that his team would make it.

“I thought we had done enough during the regular season,” Waldeck said. “We beat some top 25 teams. Our win in the conference tournament helped propel us, I think. I would have been a lot more nervous if we didn’t beat Menlo.”