2016 POSTSEASON WNIT Notes and Records
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2016 POSTSEASON WNIT Notes and Records www.womensnit.com 2016 Postseason WNIT The 64-team tournament is a single-elimination event with all games played at sites of host schools. The WNIT is committed to offering deserved opportunities to women’s basketball programs, and the 2016 Postseason WNIT features a full 64-team bracket. The WNIT offers teams an opportunity for more practice time, to experience playoff-atmosphere games, to play in front of passionate fans, and to use their WNIT success as a springboard to the next season. First-round action tips off Wednesday, March 16 and concludes Friday, March 18. Second-round games will run March 19-22, Round three goes March 23-25, quarterfinals are March 26-28, and semifinals will be played March 30-31.The championship game will be played Saturday, April 2 and will be televised live and in HD on CBS Sports Network at 3 p.m. ET. All games are hosted by participating schools. Tournament Notes -Four teams in the 2016 WNIT are previous champions of the event: Oregon (2002), Creighton (2004), Drexel (2013) and Rutgers (2014). -One of the potential benefits of playing in the WNIT is giving teams a springboard into the following year, and that was cer- tainly the case after the 2015 event. UCLA, a team with a very young roster, beat West Virginia in the 2015 WNIT final, 62-60. This season, the Bruins rolled to a 24-8 record and secured a No. 3 seed in the NCAA Tournament. West Virginia had a terrific season as well, going 24-6 overall and claiming a No. 6 seed in the tournament. -A record 36 teams in this year’s field recorded 20 or more regular-season wins. -This year’s tournament features six teams from the Big Ten, five from the Mid-American Conference and four each from the ACC, C-USA and West Coast Conference. Four conferences each placed three teams – American, A-10, Big East and Colo- nial. Other conferences represented include Big West (2), Horizon (2), Missouri Valley (2), Pac-12 (2), Summit (2), Sun Belt (2), America East (1), Atlantic Sun (1), Big 12 (1), Big Sky (1), Big South (1), Ivy (1), MAAC (1), MEAC (1), Mountain West (1), Northeast (1), OVC (1), Patriot (1), SEC (1), Southern (1), Southland (1), SWAC (1) and WAC (1). -A record 18 teams in the WNIT either won or tied their regular-season conference title: Abilene Christian (Southland); Ar- kansas State (Sun Belt); Bethune-Cookman (MEAC); Bucknell (Patriot); FGCU (Atlantic Sun); Maine (America East); Mercer (Southern); Montana State (Big Sky); Northern Iowa (Missouri Valley); Ohio (Mid-American); Quinnipiac (MAAC); Sacred Heart (Northeast); Saint Louis (Atlantic 10); South Dakota (Summit); Southern (SWAC); UC Riverside (Big West); UT Martin (Ohio Valley) and UTEP (C-USA). -The last time Rutgers and UTEP were in the tournament (2014), the championship game was played in front of a sold-out are- na at the 12,222-seat Don Haskins Center in El Paso, Texas. Rutgers scored a layup with 2 seconds left on the clock to edge UTEP 56-54 for the national championship. The Don Haskins Center sold out in a venue-record two hours following UTEP’s 66-63 semifinal win over South Dakota State. “The Don” also sold out for UTEP’s semifinal game against South Dakota State. -There will be 23 first-round games on Thursday, March 17, making it the third-busiest first-round night in event history. The 2013 WNIT had 29 games on one night and there were 26 games on one night in 2012. -The Postseason WNIT is the longest current running postseason event for women’s college basketball, outside of the NCAA Tournament. In existence since 1998, the WNIT has afforded hundreds of opportunities for schools in every conference to play in the postseason. 2016 marks the 19th year of the Postseason WNIT. -For the 8th consecutive year the Postseason WNIT championship game will be televised live on CBS Sports Network. Thad Anderson (play-by-play) and Chiney Ogwumike (analyst) will call the action. Ogwumike plays for the Connecticut Sun and was the 2014 WNBA Rookie of the Year. She also had a stellar career at Stanford where she led the Cardinal to three NCAA Final Four appearances. Ogwumike still holds the Stanford and Pac-12 record for most rebounds. Page 1 Page 1 Media Contact: Andy Hansen | (970) 672-0517 | [email protected] www.womensnit.com 3930 Automation Way - Fort Collins, CO 80525 2016 POSTSEASON WNIT Notes and Records www.womensnit.com Format The Postseason WNIT features 32 first-round games, followed by 16 second-round games, eight third-round games, four quarter- final games, two semifinal games, and the championship. The championship game is televised live nationally. The event offers 32 automatic berths, one to each established conference, and 32 at-large berths. The WNIT field and bracket is announced late on the evening of the NCAA Tournament selections. Tournament officials award an Automatic Qualifying berth to each of the nation’s 32 conferences. The spot goes to the team that finishes the highest in the regular-season conference standings that does not advance to the NCAA Tournament. If there is a tie, the WNIT abides by the conference tiebreaker. A team earns the AQ berth regardless of its overall record. A total of 32 teams are then given an At-Large berth; a team must have an overall record of .500 or better to be considered. Looking Back Freshman Jordin Canada scored a career-high 31 points to lead the UCLA women’s basketball team past West Virginia, 62-60, to win the 2015 Women’s NIT Championship played at the Charleston Civic Center. Canada connected on 9 of 19 shots from the field and made 13 of 15 free throws, helping UCLA (19-18) win its sixth consecutive game. She was the Bruins’ only player to score in double figures, shattering her previous career high of 19 points, in addition to tallying four steals and two assists. Triple Crown Sports The Postseason WNIT is owned and produced by Triple Crown Sports, based in Fort Collins, Colo. TCS also organizes men’s and women’s college basketball tournaments in Cancun, and the Preseason WNIT. TCS is the leader in youth and collegiate sports and manages more than 100 amateur sporting events across the country in volleyball, fastpitch softball, baseball and basketball. With 33 years of experience in the event business, TCS is nationally-recognized as a premier tournament organization. The Bracketing Process The Postseason WNIT continues to draw interest from all corners of the college basketball scene – 64 teams getting the chance to continue their season creates a lot of excitement within rosters, coaching staffs and groups of fans. Here are some details to help explain how the event is bracketed: Q: Why aren’t teams seeded? A: The WNIT field is selected after the NCAA tournament first confirms the 64 teams playing in that event. The WNIT uses a broad range of rankings systems and also considers factors like how a team is currently playing and injury concerns. In the end, 32 spots go to automatic qualifiers (teams with the highest regular-season finish in their conference that are not playing in the NCAA Tournament), with the other berths going, as determined by the WNIT selection committee, to the strongest remaining teams. The 64 teams in the WNIT are then placed in tiers, and those tiers are used to construct the brackets. In general, first-round games will have middle-tier teams facing each other, while top- tier teams face bottom-tier teams. Adjustments are commonly made, however, to make sure there are no rematches from the regular season, and that teams from the same conference do not play each other in Round 1, and ideally, Round 2. The big-picture goal is to evenly distribute team strength throughout the bracket. Other factors affecting the brackets are school days being missed, facility access, locations of teams, travel and lodging constraints, availability to host, and other issues. With all the variables teams must navigate, the WNIT has found no real point in generating a seeding for each team, because it often does not hold true with all of the factors that can affect the bracket. Q: Why is my team not playing a home game in Round 1? We have a better record! A: The WNIT is almost 100 percent of the time a “breaking news” development for college programs, which means access to the school’s arena may be limited. There could be other events already booked; the men’s NCAA Tournament may also complicate ac- cess. WNIT officials also have to consider the fan base of each potential host school, and the ability for visiting teams to get to the site in timely fashion. Keep in mind that some schools simply can’t or won’t devote resources needed to properly host a postseason contest. One of the WNIT’s goals is to help teams build their programs with their community, and WNIT games can be a great vehicle for getting a new fan base engaged in women’s college basketball. Media Contact: Andy Hansen | (970) 672-0517 | [email protected] Page 2 www.womensnit.com 3930 Automation Way - Fort Collins, CO 80525 2016 POSTSEASON WNIT Notes and Records www.womensnit.com Page 2 Page Page 3 Page Women’s National Invitation Tournament POSTSEASON WNIT BRACKET Produced by Round 1 Round 2 Round 3 Round 3 Round 2 Round 1 March 16-18 March 19-22 March 23-25 March 23-25 March 19-22 March 16-18 Quarterfinals Quarterfinals Gonzaga March 26-28 Northwestern 6 pm PT Thur 3/17 Semifinals Semifinals March 26-28 7 pm CT Thur 3/17 at Gonzaga March 30-31 March 30-31 at Northwestern UC Riverside San Diego Utah Central Michigan 7 pm MT Fri 3/18 7 pm ET Thur 3/17 at Utah at Central Michigan Montana St.