WALTHAM, Mass. – It’s that time of year again on the Bentley campus. Dorms are closed, parking lots are empty and almost all of the 3,100 students are on spring break. Then, there’s the women’s basketball team.

Coach Barbara Stevens has many rules, but one of them is unbendable: there will be no mention of the words “spring break” while she is around. That’s because spring break at Bentley coincides with the NCAA Division II tournament and Stevens would rather be coaching than checking out the travel pages for the best deal to St. Lucia.

“This is exactly how we want to spend our spring break,” gushed freshman point guard Bri Fecteau of Westbrook, Maine. “Well, maybe not there … But playing basketball.”

While many of the Bentley kids will be on break, the women’s basketball team will be in, ahem, North Dakota. Bentley will face Kennesaw (Ga.) state in bucolic Grand Forks on Wednesday.

This marks the seventh time since 1989 that Stevens has taken her team to the Elite Eight. (There is no Final Four, per se.) She has yet to come home with a national title – Bentley was the runner-up in 1990 – and the Falcons are the third lowest rated of the eight survivors this time around.

But they are there. Only North Dakota State, a five-time champion which was upset this year after going 27-0, has won more tournament games. No one has more Elite Eight apperances.

“I think the key this year,” Stevens said Monday, “is how well Bri [Fecteau] was able to acclimate to college and how well the players adapted to her. It ended up being a real smooth transition.”

Fecteau was sifting through Division I offers at this time last year. She was, Stevens thought, a shoo-in to attend Maine after an All-Everything career at Westbrook High.

Fecteau merely was the MVP of the regionals, averaging 15.5 points a game in the wins over Lowell and Stonehill. She has a little work to do on her defense and her assist/turnover ratio, but she is confident she made the right decision to go to Bentley.

“I love Maine, but I didn’t see myself fitting in and I I felt it might be a good idea to get out of Maine, too,” she said Monday. “Your dream is always to be a Division I player. But when it came down to considering my options, this was the right move. It’s a strong program. It’s a competitive program. I fell in love with the coaches. This is what I wanted.”

She is the only freshman on the team. Junior Stacey Connors is the top scorer, but averages only 12.2 points a game.

“We don’t have any stars. It’s a no-frills, Plain Jane kind of team,” Stevens said. “But we are very balanced and have a lot of interchangeable parts. We don’t stick out in any way except on defense.”