The 2025 Northeast Conference Women's Basketball Tournament was the postseason women's basketball tournament for the Northeast Conference for the 2024–25 NCAA Division I women's basketball season. The tournament took place on three dates between March 10 and 16, 2025, with all tournament games played in the home arenas of the higher-seeded school. The winner would receive the conference's automatic bid to the 2025 NCAA tournament, provided such team was eligible. If a reclassifying institution won the NEC tournament championship, the tournament runner-up would be awarded the NEC's automatic bid to the NCAA tournament. If two reclassifying teams, i.e. Le Moyne and Stonehill, reached the final of the NEC tournament, the conference would stage an automatic qualifier game between the two non-advancing semifinalists. Since Le Moyne and Stonehill were matched up against each other in the tournament semifinals, an ineligible team was guaranteed to reach the NEC final. Consequently, the winner of the semifinal between Fairleigh Dickinson and Chicago State, ultimately Fairleigh Dickinson, received the NEC's automatic bid to the NCAA tournament. FDU made its NCAA Division I tournament debut.

This was the final women's tournament held under the "Northeast Conference" name. On October 2, 2025, the conference changed its name to its longstanding initialism of NEC.

Seeds For the third straight year, the NEC changed its rules regarding eligibility for the conference tournament. Teams transitioning from Division II may participate in the NEC tournament starting with the third year of their transition. Therefore, Mercyhurst will not be eligible for the NEC tournament until 2027. The change is prospective rather than retroactive. Consequently, Le Moyne, in their second transition year, remain eligible for the 2025 tournament. This means the eight conference members other than Mercyhurst will participate in the tournament. In 2024, the top eight teams in the conference regular-season standings qualified, and all transitioning NEC teams were eligible for the conference tournament.

Teams will be seeded by record within the conference, with a tiebreaker system to seed teams with identical conference records. Although Mercyhurst is ineligible for the tournament, they may still be involved in a tiebreaker and affect the outcome of a multi-team tie.

SeedSchoolConf.Tiebreaker1Fairleigh Dickinson 16–02Stonehill 11–53Central Connecticut 10–64Saint Francis9–75Le Moyne6–101–1 vs. Stonehill6Chicago State6–100–2 vs. Stonehill7 Wagner 5–118LIU 3–13Mercyhurst 6–10

Schedule GameTime*MatchupScoreTelevisionQuarterfinals – Monday, March 1017 p.m.44–73NEC Front Row2No. 7 Wagner at No. 2 Stonehill50–723No. 6 Chicago State at No. 3 Central Connecticut70–604No. 5 Le Moyne at No. 4 Saint Francis62–51Semifinals – Thursday, March 1357 p.m.No. 6 Chicago State at No. 1 Fairleigh Dickinson 61–90ESPN+6No. 5 Le Moyne at No. 2 Stonehill41–60Championship – Sunday, March 16712 p.m.No. 2 Stonehill at No. 1 Fairleigh Dickinson49–66ESPNU*Game times in EDT (UTC−4). Rankings denote tournament seed.

Tournament highlights Quarterfinals Semifinals Final

Bracket Teams will be reseeded after each round with the highest remaining seeds receiving home-court advantage.

Game summaries All times are in EDT (UTC−4). Quarterfinals Semifinals *** Note: The winner of Chicago State–Fairleigh Dickinson game will receive the NEC's automatic bid to the NCAA tournament, since both Stonehill and Le Moyne are ineligible for NCAA postseason play as institutions reclassifying from Division II. ***

Final

Awards and honors Source:

Tournament MVP:

NEC All-Tournament Team

Statistics Source:

References