HBCU and local women’s DI basketball teams prep NCAA Tournament
March Madness is upon us, and now that NCAA women’s basketball teams are officially allowed to use that term, even though it’s been used for decades it only became official in 2022, let’s go mad. While the only teams from New York and New Jersey headed to the Big Dance—the NCAA Division I Women’s Basketball Tournament—are Columbia, Princeton, and Syracuse, other local teams will be dancing in other arenas.
This year, the NCAA unveiled the Women’s Basketball Invitation Tournament (WBIT), its version of the long-running Women’s National Invitational Tournament (WNIT), which also continues to exist as does the Women’s Basketball Invitational (WBI), so more than 100 teams not part of the NCAA Tournament will still have a chance to compete.
Stony Brook, which was narrowly defeated by Drexel in the CAA Championship game on Sunday, is headed to the WBIT and will face the #1 seed James Madison today. Stony Brook comes in with the momentum of a good season in which the Seawolves earned their inaugural CAA Regular Season Championship. St. John’s University is also headed to the WBIT and is taking on the University of Florida in Gainesville today.
Seton Hall University will play in the WBIT, heading to Philadelphia to play Saint Joseph’s today. Monmouth University is an automatic qualifier for the WNIT. Round one of the WNIT began yesterday.
The overall top seed in the NCAA Tournament and top seed in Regional 1 is the University of South Carolina. The undefeated Gamecocks begin action tomorrow against the winner of the Round of 68 game between Sacred Heart and Presbyterian. The top seed in Regional 2 is Iowa, which features the all-time scoring leader in NCAA Division I, Caitlin Clark. Iowa will face the winner of the Holy Cross v UT Martin game. Defending champion LSU received the #3 seed in this region and will play Rice tomorrow. The top seed in Regional 3 is USC, which features former Columbia player Kaitlyn Davis.
Also going to the Big Dance this year are two HBCU teams that earned spots in the NCAA Tournament. They are Norfolk State, which won its second consecutive MEAC Tournament, and Jackson State, which prevailed in the SWAC. Jackson State takes on UConn on Saturday, and Norfolk State plays the #2 seed in Regional 4, 2021 NCAA Champion Stanford, tomorrow.
The post HBCU and local women’s DI basketball teams prep NCAA Tournament appeared first on New York Amsterdam News.