SAN ANTONIO, Texas — Six days after punching the program's first ticket to the Big Dance, forward Hailey Zeise and her Stony Brook women's basketball teammates remain euphoric.

"It just feels like a dream, honestly," said Zeise, who returned this season as a higher-education graduate student after last season was halted on the eve of the America East championship game. "I think every athlete dreams of making it to the biggest stage, making it to the Big Dance. And so just to be here, especially after everything we've been through, it feels like a sense of relief almost. You just feel in your heart like it's all worth it.

"And it's not the wins that do that. Just to be able to be here with my teammates and experience all these things together, all the testing and swabs up your nose and all of that kind of stuff, it really does make it feel worth it."

After two days confined to their hotel as part of an NCAA-mandated quarantine, the Seawolves got onto a court on Thursday for the first time since arriving in San Antonio and shook off some rust.

The 14th-seeded Seawolves face No. 3-seed Arizona on Monday at 2 p.m. ET at the Alamodome on ESPN2 in an opening-round matchup.

The Wildcats, out of the Pac-12, went 16-5 this season, with wins over ninth-ranked UCLA and a pair of victories over Oregon, when the Ducks were ranked 10th and 11th, respectively.

Stony Brook's challenge includes containing 5-foot-6 guard Aari McDonald, the Pac-12 Player of the Year. McDonald averages 19.3 points per game.

"They're very good," Stony Brook coach Caroline McCombs said about Arizona. "They play a tough, man-to-man defense. They deny. They get 10 steals a game. McDonald can score in transition, sort of like nobody we've seen. So we definitely have our work cut out for us defensively.

"We're going to have to be elite — taking care of the ball so they're not getting easy scores, getting back in transition so they're not getting easy scores. We want to make it a five-on-five game and make them score over us. And then, obviously, rebound the ball and limit them to one shot."

Expanding on McDonald, McCombs added: "Everybody has to sprint back in transition. We need to build a wall at the three-point line and in and really make it difficult for her to even see an angle, because if she sees one, she's going to take it. We really have to pack it in and make it look like there's nowhere to go."

Regardless, McCombs likes the identity and competitiveness of her veteran team. She noted that the players have bought in so much to her defense-first mantra, they police and "lift up" each other. And that buy-in translates to winning on the court.

"Our defense has always been our identity since I took over as the head coach," said McCombs, now in her seventh season. "Our defense tells us if we win. Our offense tells us by how much."