MANHATTAN, Kan. — Perhaps if the Portland Pilots squint hard enough, the crowd they are going to play in front of Friday might appear to be backing them.

Thirteenth-seeded Portland takes on Kansas State at the home of the No. 4 seed Wildcats in the first round of the women’s NCAA Tournament, with a match between No. 5 seed Colorado and No. 12 seed Drake following Friday night.

In the second game at Bramlage Coliseum, Drake (29-5) rides in on a high after winning the Missouri Valley Conference title game on a buzzer-beater. Colorado (22-9) enters having lost six of its last eight games. The Buffaloes exited the Pac-12 Tournament in a double-OT loss to Oregon State in the quarterfinals.

“Teams are in the tournament for a reason, so you respect everybody that you go up against,” Colorado guard Jaylyn Sherrod said. “Drake is a really good team. I think at the end of the day really — and I know we said it a lot — but it’s about us.”

Colorado coach JR Payne said she’s confident that outside noise won’t affect her team.

“A core identity of our program is trying to be great every day, no matter what we’re doing,” she said. “Our mindset is just to prioritize being excellent each and every day.”

The Bulldogs enter the tournament on a 14-game winning streak. They’re confident they can keep it going.

“We have tons of momentum,” guard Katie Dinnebier said. “We’re peaking at the right time.”

When asked if they could keep it going against teams they haven’t faced before, teammate Grace Berg said, “it plays to our advantage.”

“We haven’t played them yet, but they haven’t played us either,” she said. “We’re hard to scout. We have five people on the court capable of scoring all the time.”

That confidence impressed coach Allison Pohlman.

“The phenomenal thing they’ve done is stay in the moment,” she said. “It’s just trying to stay one second, one minute at a time.”