The 2023 NAIA women's basketball tournament was the

tournament A tournament is a competition involving at least three competitors, all participating in a sport or game. More specifically, the term may be used in either of two overlapping senses: # One or more competitions held at a single venue and concen ...

held by the NAIA to determine the national champion of women's

college basketball College basketball is basketball that is played by teams of Student athlete, student-athletes at universities and colleges. In the Higher education in the United States, United States, colleges and universities are governed by collegiate athle ...

among its member programs in the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

and

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...

, culminating the 2022–23 NAIA women's basketball season.

Clarke Clarke is a surname which means "clerk". The surname is of English and Irish origin and comes from the Latin . Variants include Clerk and Clark. Clarke is also uncommonly chosen as a given name. Irish surname origin Clarke is a common surname ...

defeated defending champions

Thomas More Sir Thomas More (7 February 1478 – 6 July 1535), venerated in the Catholic Church as Saint Thomas More, was an English lawyer, judge, social philosopher, author, statesman, theologian, and noted Renaissance humanist. He also served Henry VII ...

in the championship game, 63–52, the Pride's first NAIA national title. This was additionally Thomas More's third consecutive finals appearance and their final one before departing for

NCAA Division II NCAA Division II (D-II) is the intermediate-level division of competition in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). It offers an alternative to both the larger and better-funded Division I and to the scholarship-free environment ...

. The tournament finals were once again played at the

Tyson Events Center The Fleet Farm Arena, formerly Gateway Arena, is a multi-purpose arena inside Tyson Events Center, located in Sioux City, Iowa and sponsored by Tyson Foods and Fleet Farm. The arena is commonly referred to as Tyson Events Center for marketing pur ...

Sioux City, Iowa Sioux City () is a city in Woodbury County, Iowa, Woodbury and Plymouth County, Iowa, Plymouth counties in the U.S. state of Iowa. The population was 85,797 in the 2020 United States Census, 2020 census, making it the List of cities in Iowa, fo ...

Qualification

The tournament continued to feature sixty-four teams and utilize a simple

single-elimination A single-elimination knockout, or sudden-death tournament is a type of elimination tournament where the loser of a match-up is immediately eliminated from the tournament. Each winner will play another in the next round, until the final match-up, w ...

format. The first two preliminary rounds were played on regional campus sites while all subsequent rounds were played at the final tournament site in Sioux City.

References

{{NAIA Women's Basketball Tournaments NAIA NAIA women's basketball championships 2023 in sports in Iowa Women's sports in Iowa

Qualification

See also

References