Postseason WNIT sets dates, reviews berths

The Women’s National Invitation Tournament is gearing up for postseason.  Please read the information below for details about the 2008 Postseason WNIT.

The tournament involves 48 teams following last year’s expansion that provided one automatic bid to every conference in the country.  All games in the single-elimination format are played at the home facilities of participating schools. Because all tournament games are hosted by participating schools, it is imperative that interested schools clear possible game dates with their facilities.

Teams that travel are eligible for a travel reimbursement from the WNIT.

Here are the probable dates for each round:
Round 1                       March 19-21
Round 2                       March 22-24
Round 3                       March 26-28
Quarterfinals                 March 29-31
Semifinals                     April 2-3
Championship               April 5

The WNIT understands that most facilities cannot be held for the entirety of March, but if teams can hold one or two dates open in each round, along with the championship date, that would ensure that those schools can be considered as host sites. Schools that would like to be considered for hosting WNIT games need to submit a host bid form to the WNIT.

The selection of the 48 teams for the Postseason WNIT will be according to the following:
    1. Thirty-one (31) spots will be filled with one team per conference.  That team will be the highest-finishing team in the conference’s regular-season standings, that does not advance to the NCAA Tournament.  As in the past, the teams’ record must be at or above .500.
For example, if the second-place team during the regular season does not win its conference tournament, and the top-seeded team does (and earns the NCAA berth), then the second-place team automatically will be invited to the WNIT.
If the top-seeded team after the regular season does not win its conference tournament and is not invited to the NCAA Tournament, then it will have a guaranteed spot in the WNIT.
No matter which team from a conference wins its conference tournament, the WNIT will take the next best team available.  That team is determined by conference tournament seeding based on regular-season standings (or by a conference’s pre-determined by-law addressing its WNIT automatic berth).
    2. The remaining seventeen (17) berths will be filled by the top teams available based on the selection criteria used in the past.

The 2008 Postseason WNIT will feature 16 first-round games, followed by 16 second-round games, eight third-round games, four quarterfinal games, two semifinal games and the championship. 

The WNIT field will be announced late on the evening of the NCAA Tournament selections, on Monday, March 17.

No. 3 Maryland claims its first
Preseason WNIT title

Sunday, Nov. 18, 2007 - Maryland, ranked third in the nation, overcame No. 4 LSU on Sunday afternoon in a battle for the 2007 Preseason WNIT championship crown.

Maryland downed LSU 75-62 at Comcast Center in College Park, Maryland.  After a back-and-forth first half, LSU took a 40-38 lead early in the second half before Maryland went on a 16-1 run to take control of the game.

Maryland's Kristi Toliver scored 23 points and added seven assists as she earned MVP honors for the WNIT All-Tournament Team. Teammate Jade Perry also earned a spot on the elite team, as did LSU's Sylvia Fowles and Quianna Chaney; Michigan State's Allyssa DeHaan; and Notre Dame's Charel Allen.

Championship
Sunday, Nov. 18, 2007
Maryland 75, LSU 62

Semifinals
Thursday, Nov. 15, 2007
LSU 64, Michigan State 41
Friday, Nov. 16, 2007
Maryland 75, Notre Dame 59

Round 2/Quarterfinals
Sunday, Nov. 11, 2007
Michigan State 73, Evansville 53
LSU 73, TCU 54
Tuesday, Nov. 13, 2007
Maryland 91, Delaware 43
Notre Dame 78, Western Kentucky 59

Round 1
Friday, Nov. 9, 2007
Maryland 76, Princeton 52
Western Kentucky 90, ETSU 73
Evansville 89, Marshall 77
TCU 74, Radford 63
Michigan State 65, IUPUI 35
Delaware 54, Delaware State 47
LSU 86, Samford 38
Notre Dame 98, Miami Ohio 50

Consolation Bracket
Round 1, Site A
Friday, Nov. 16, 2007
At Miami, Ohio
Miami, Ohio 74, Radford 67
IUPUI 60, Marshall 49
Round 2, Site A
Saturday, Nov. 17, 2007
At Miami, Ohio
Radford 72, Marshall 61
Miami, Ohio 73,  IUPUI 59

Round 1, Site B
Friday, Nov. 16, 2007
At Samford
ETSU 75, Delaware State 72, (OT)
Samford 77, Princeton 69
Round 2, Site B
Saturday, Nov. 17, 2007
At Samford
Delaware State 63,  Princeton 62 (OT)
Samford 91, ETSU 71

Round 3
Friday, Nov. 16, 2007
TCU 66, Delaware 36
Western Kentucky 75, Evansville 56

To view the 2007 Preseason Championship Bracket  in pdf form, you must have Acrobat Reader.   Click to view the 2007 Preseason Championship Bracket in jpeg form.
To view the 2007 Preseason Consolation Bracket  in pdf form, you must have Acrobat Reader.   Click to view the 2007 Preseason Consolation Championship Bracket in jpeg form.
 
The 2007 Preseason WNIT field included nine teams that played in the postseason last season, highlighted by LSU’s Final Four finish.  Delaware, Delaware State, LSU, Maryland, Michigan State, Notre Dame and TCU played in the NCAA Tournament, and East Tennessee State and Western Kentucky advanced to the Postseason WNIT.  They were joined by Evansville, IUPUI, Marshall, Miami (Ohio), Princeton, Radford, and Samford in the fall’s Preseason WNIT.

Nine teams played in the Preseason WNIT for the first time in their school history: Delaware State, ETSU, IUPUI, LSU, Marshall, Michigan State, Princeton, Radford and Samford.

Wyoming wins Postseason WNIT championship

March 31, 2007 - Wyoming defeated Wisconsin 72-56 to capture its first Postseason WNIT title in front of a sell-out crowd of 15,462 fans at Arena-Auditorium in Laramie, Wyo.

Wyoming (27-9) won its most games in program history, and also set four straight attendance records along the way: 7,362 fans for the Round 3 game against Oregon; 11,253 fans for the quarterfinal game against South Dakota State; 12,225 fans for the triple-overtime semifinal thriller against Kansas State; and the final capacity crowd for Wisconsin, which sold out in just a few hours.

"I don't think we could have asked for a better experience," tournament MVP Hanna Zavecz said. "I think we're very grateful for the opportunity to play in the postseason, and just making it all this way is amazing."

Jodi Bolerjack and Justyna Podziemska scored 16 points apiece in the final game to lead Wyoming, which won 21 games in the regular season and tied for second in the Mountain West Conference.

Podziemska also had 10 rebounds and eight assists, Zavecz scored 12 points, and Megan McGuffey had 10 points in front of the biggest crowd ever for a Wyoming women's game, and the second-largest in Arena-Auditorium..

Wisconsin (23-13), which won the Postseason WNIT title in 2000, was led by Jolene Anderson.  The Big Ten scoring leader had 21 points Saturday and set a WNIT scoring record with 129 points for the tournament.  Jenny Lingor set the previous WNIT record (116 points) for Southwest Missouri State in 2005.

Joining Zavecz and Anderson on the all-tournament team were Janese Banks of Wisconsin; Wyoming's Bolerjack; Ashley Sweat of Kansas State; and Crystal Kelly of Western Kentucky.

The game was televised live and was available to more than 80 million households across the country. 

PURDUE captures
2006 Preseason WNIT title

Waco, Texas - Purdue proved to be too much for Baylor in the championship game of the Preseason Women's National Invitation Tournament, winning 69-55 on Sunday, Nov. 19.

The Boilermakers, ranked 12 in the nation, snapped No. 16 Baylor's 20-game home winning streak vs. nonconference opponents.   

Purdue was led by senior Katie Gearlds, who scored 23 points and had six rebounds and four assists. Gearlds was named the Tournament MVP for her efforts.  For the tournament, she averaged 18 points, 5.8 rebounds and 3.8 assists per game.  Joining her on the all-tournament team was Purdue's Lindsay Wisdom-Hylton, who added 21 points, 12 rebounds and four blocks against Baylor.

This was the first meeting in history between Purdue and Baylor.  Baylor was led by Bernice Mosby, who led all scorers with 26 points. Mosby and teammate Danielle Wilson were voted to the all-tournament team as well.  Wilson set a record with 20 blocks in four WNIT games, eclipsing the previous mark of 12 set in 2005 by Oklahoma's Courtney Paris.  Baylor set a team record with 40 blocks for the WNIT, beating the old mark of 21 set in 2005 by the University of Connecticut.

Also named to the all-tournament team were Dani Kubik Wright of BYU and Marquetta Dickens of North Carolina State.

2006 Preseason WNIT
Purdue 69, Baylor 55                                              Box Score            Highlights

Semifinal Round
Wed. Nov. 15
Purdue 68, NC State 38                                          Box Score           Highlights
Thur. Nov. 16
Baylor 84, BYU 58                                                 Box Score            Highlights

Second-round games
Sun. Nov. 12
North Carolina State 59, Iona 34                            Box Score            Highlights
Purdue 83, Hartford 51                                           Box Score           Highlights
Baylor 81, Hofstra 71                                              Box Score            Highlights
Monday, Nov. 13
BYU 55, Stanford 52                                              Box Score           Highlights

First-round games
Thursday, Nov. 9
Purdue 67, Belmont 43                                        Box Score            Highlights
Iona 66, St. John’s 56                                          Box Score            Highlights
N.C. State 78, High Point 48                                Box Score            Highlights
Stanford 88, Loyola-Marymount 61                      Box Score            Highlights
Friday, Nov. 10
Hartford 62, Dartmouth 45                                    Box Score            Highlights
Baylor 84, North Texas 47                                    Box Score            Highlights
Hofstra 79, Wichita State 72                                 Box Score            Highlights
BYU 73, Idaho State 50                                        Box Score            Highlights

To view the 2006 Preseason Bracket  you must have Acrobat Reader.
Click the image below to download your free version of Acrobat Reader.

KANSAS STATE CAPTURES
2006 POSTSEASON WNIT TITLE

March 31, 2006 – Kansas State defeated Marquette 77-65 in the championship game of the Postseason WNIT.  The teams played in front of a sellout crowd of 13,340 fans at Bramlage Coliseum in Manhattan, Kan.  It was the third-largest crowd in Postseason WNIT history and the first sellout in two years at K-State.

Kansas State (24-10) and Marquette (22-11) battled back and forth nearly the entire game.  Marquette led 39-38 at halftime, and the lead changed 10 times before K-State made its final run late in the game, and then held Marquette to two baskets in the final seven minutes of play.

Kimberly Dietz (21 points) led K-State, and teammate Shalee Lehning had a rare triple-double with 14 points, 10 rebounds and 10 assists.  For Marquette, Danielle Kamm scored 16 points.

Dietz and Kamm earned spots on the WNIT All-Tournament team, as did Marquette's Christina Quaye, Western Kentucky's Crystal Kelly and Pittsburgh's Mallorie Winn.  Claire Coggins, a junior at Kansas State, was named the Tournament MVP and scored 87 points during the tournament.

To get to the finals, Kansas State defeated Western Kentucky, Idaho State, Fresno State and Nebraska.  Marquette downed Pittsburgh, Illinois, Iowa State and Indiana in earlier rounds.  It was the first postseason championship game for either Kansas State or Marquette.

The final marked the culmination of the WNIT's first 40-team field.  The event began with 16 teams playing a preliminary round, with the winners feeding into 16 first-round games.  All games were held on the campuses of participating schools, and no seeds were designated.  It was the first year that the tournament expanded from 32 to 40 teams, which was done to offer more postseason opportunities to teams that won their regular-season conference title but lost in their conference tournament and did not earn an NCAA automatic berth.

Champion: Kansas State
Runner-up: Marquette
All-Tournament Team: Claire Coggins (MVP), Kansas State; Kimberly Dietz, Kansas State; Danielle Kamm, Marquette; Christina Quaye, Marquette; Mallorie Winn, Pittsburgh; Crystal Kelly, Western Kentucky.

Preliminary Round
Wednesday, March 15
Hofstra 92, Stony Brook 65
Tennessee Tech 56, Belmont 55
Rice 64, Jackson State 48
Illinois 58, Western Illinois 37
Thursday, March 16
Florida International 81, Cincinnati 75 OT
Kansas 59, Northern Iowa 49
Oregon State 74, Santa Clara 48
Fresno State 78, UC Santa Barbara 59

First Round
Thursday, March 16
Indiana State 79, Eastern Michigan 57
Iowa State 79, Wisconsin-Green Bay 71, OT
Nebraska 62, Drake 59
Friday, March 17
Xavier 70 OT, South Carolina 65 OT
Charlotte 70, James Madison 62
Western Kentucky 83, Tennessee Tech 66
Marquette 64, Illinois 44
Kansas State 88, Idaho State 68
Saturday, March 18
Indiana 67, Rice 57
Pittsburgh 64, Delaware 57
Villanova 71, Hofstra 44
Virginia 48, St Joseph's 42
Miami 95, Florida Int'l 83
Wyoming 67, Oregon State 49
Sunday, March 19
Fresno State 77, UNLV 57
Mississippi 78, Kansas 76

Second Round
Monday, March 20
Indiana 68, Indiana State 62
Marquette 68, Iowa State 63
Western Kentucky 81, Charlotte 68
Tuesday, March 21
Villanova 59, Xavier 47
Wednesday, March 22
Virginia 83, Miami 72
Kansas State 64, Fresno State 61
Pittsburgh 85, Mississippi 76
Nebraska 72, Wyoming 67

Quarterfinal Round
Thursday, March 23
Western Kentucky 94, Villanova, 81
Friday, March 24
Pittsburgh 68, Virginia 56
Marquette 57, Indiana 56
Kansas State 77, Nebraska 63

Semifinal Games
Monday, March 27
Marquette 77, Pittsburgh 64
Tuesday, March 28
Kansas State 57, Western Kentucky, 56 OT

Championship Game
Friday, March 31
At Manhattan, Kan.
Kansas State 77, Marquette 65

To view the 2006 Postseason Bracket  you must have Acrobat Reader.
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