Basking in a tournament glow

‘This is a treat for us to get to play on this national stage’

Eastern Washington women’s basketball head coach Joddie Gleason has a pretty vivid memory of what she was doing the last time her Eagles qualified for the NCAA Tournament.

It was 37 years ago in 1987 when Eastern lost to Oregon at Eugene in a first-round game 75-56. Gleason quickly recalls she was in high school and was following her dad’s Colusa High School boys’ basketball team on the way to a state championship.

Joddie Vossler, her name prior to marriage to Skip Gleason (EWU’s associate head coach) would later go on to notable a...