SDSU women earn WBIT first round win with clutch effort against UC Irvine
San Diego State's Naomi Panganiban (24) rises for a shot against the defense of UC Irvine's Shirel Nahum (12) and Jada Wynn (23) in the first round of the 2026 Women's Basketball Invitation Tournament on Thursday, March 19, 2026 at the Jenny Craig Pavilion in San Diego, Calif. Image courtesy of SDSU Athletics. SAN DIEGO – The eleven days spent back in the lab served the San Diego State women’s basketball team well, as the Aztecs gutted and gritted their way to a 61-55 win over UC Irvine in the first round of the Women’s Basketball Invitation Tournament at Jenny Craig Pavilion.
The wounds of an opening round conference tournament exit became hardened defensive callouses as the Aztecs (26-5) held the Big West regular season champion Anteaters (26-7) without a basket for the final 2:38 where they forced three turnovers and closed the game on an 8-0 run. Naomi Panganiban scored a game-high 22 points and made all nine of her free throws — SDSU made all 13 and UCI made all nine of their freebies in the game — while Kennedy Lee added 11 points with eight rebounds. Hunter Hernandez led the Anteaters with 19 points and four assists, and Jada Wynn scored 12 points and matched SDSU’s Bailey Barnhard with a game-high nine rebounds.
Lee went to the bench after getting hit under her left eye while battling for a defensive rebound with Naomy Zonzon-Huyghe, with the UC Irvine guard drawing the loose ball foul at the 1:10 mark of the third quarter. She returned to play the final 6:45, and scored the first basket of the decisive run to close the game off a Barnhard feed. Bailey had scored back-to-back buckets to help erase a 3-point deficit early in the fourth quarter.
The Aztecs scored their final 6 points at the free throw line, with Panganiban making a pair and Nala Williams filling the final four. Williams also came up with a key steal off Big West Player of the Year Hernandez inside of 30 seconds remaining that led to Hernandez eventually fouling out. The defensive duties of marking Hernandez were shared between Mountain West Player of the Year Williams and Mountain West Sixth Player of the Year Kaelyn Hamilton, with Hamilton hamstrung by foul trouble and playing 15 minutes and scoring 4 points but also recording a key steal.
In the third quarter UC Irvine splashed three of four 3-point tries in a 2:51 flurry, with Wynn, Hernandez and Lauryn Madsen each knocking down one to open up a 4-point lead and force an SDSU timeout. Panganiban responded out of the break by hitting a left-corner 3-pointer to stem the tide. The final 4:35 of the third frame was played at a herky-jerky pace, with the extra media timeout coming after an SDSU foul following the Panganiban making.
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