Shocker women’s basketball celebrated St. Patrick’s Day in a different style than most college students.

After winning their consecutive Missouri Valley Conference tournament championship, earning an automatic bid to the 2014 NCAA tournament, the team watched the ESPN NCAA Women’s Selection Special. 

Earning the No. 14 seed in the Stanford region bracket, the team will face No. 3 seed Penn State at 11:30 CT Sunday, airing on ESPN2.

This year, the team hosted a public watch party in the Champions Club of Charles Koch Arena. Roughly 100 family, friends and fans gathered to learn their next opponent.

Facing their first Big Ten conference team of the year, junior Jamillah Bonner said she is excited and believes the team’s tough defense will pull the win.

“I feel like I’m confident, I’m ready,” Bonner said. “I’m just excited. I think we can lock them down on our defense. All we have to do is play tough defense and I think we can get this game.”

Last season, the team entered the tournament for the first time in the program’s history. The Shockers fell short against the Texas A&M Aggies, 71-45, and were eliminated in their first game. Head coach Jody Adams hopes that the aggression and anger the team felt after that game still lingers in their play against Penn State.

“I had a lot of younger ones that were pissed off,” Adams said. “I hope that they’re still pissed off from last year.”

The team will have the rest week to prepare mentally and physically for Penn State before heading out to University Park, Pa. Meanwhile, junior Alex Harden said she will help mentally prepare the younger members of the team.

“Just figuring out a way to get them prepared all this week and then calming them down for them to play basketball on Sunday,” Harden said. “With the preparation that we do all this week for them, I should be ready for Sunday.”