Tuesday, March 18, 2008

UTEP and SMU Women Set for NCAA Hoops Action

IRVING, TEXAS (March 18, 2008) Conference USA will send three women’s basketball teams to postseason play as UTEP and SMU accepted bids to the NCAA Championship, while Southern Miss will participate in the WNIT. C-USA will be sending two teams in the national tournament for the first time since 2005.

SMU (24-8), who earned C-USA’s automatic bid to the NCAA Championship, earned a 12th seed in the Oklahoma City Regional and will face No. 5 seed Notre Dame (23-8) on Sunday, March 23 at 2:30 p.m. EST. The game will be televised by ESPN inside the Mackey Arena in West Lafayette, Ind., on the campus of Purdue University.

The winner of that game will advance to take on the winner of the No. 4 seed Oklahoma/No. 13 seed Illinois State contest in the second round on Tues., March 25.

SMU, who has won 10 of its past 12 games, has a prolific offensive attack, averaging 74 points per game on 42 percent shooting from the floor. The Mustangs limits their opposition to 64 ppg. SMU is led by first-team all-league honoree Janielle Dodds' 15 points and 7.6 rebounds per game. Sophomore forward Delisha Wills is also in double figures, chipping in 12 ppg.

SMU won its first C-USA title and became the first team in the league to win a tournament crown after losing its last two regular season games. The Mustangs last conference championship came in 1998-99 as a member of the Western Athletic Conference.

The teams have met twice before: Notre Dame came out on top, 76-60, in South Bend, Ind., in the 1981-82 season, and the Mustangs prevailed two years later, 64-63, at Moody Coliseum.

Notre Dame is ranked No. 15 in the Associated Press poll and No. 19 in the ESPN/USA Today poll. The Irish started the season on a hot streak, winning 12 of their first 13 games, including 10 straight. They then lost four of their next seven games, including showdowns with traditional powers Tennessee and Connecticut. The Irish have three players averaging double digits in scoring: Charel Allen (14.5 ppg), Ashley Barlow (11.7) and Lindsay Schrader (10.4).

Earning an at-large bid to the “Big Dance” is C-USA’s regular season champion UTEP (27-3). The No. 7 seed Miners will face No. 10th seed Western Kentucky (26-7) in the Spokane Regional Saturday in Stanford, Calif. The game will be televised by ESPN2 with an approximate tip time of 10:30 p.m. EST.

Western Kentucky was the Sun Belt Conference's East Division champion with a 16-2 record. The Lady Toppers beat Middle Tennessee, 65-49, to capture the conference tournament title on March 11 in Mobile.

WKU is led by senior forward Crystal Kelly, who averages 22.7 ppg to rank sixth in the nation. She is also averaging 10.6 rebounds, eighth in the country, and tops the NCAA with a .649 field goal percentage. The 6-3 Kelly is one of four Lady Topper players with double figure scoring averages. The Lady Toppers are eighth in the nation in field goal percentage (.468) and 10th in rebound margin (+7.6 rpg).

The winner of Saturday's game will meet either No. 2 seed Stanford (30-3) or 15th-seed Cleveland State (19-13) on Monday, March 24.

The Miners were the first program in league history to go through the conference schedule unbeaten and established a league-best 23-game winning streak.

In WNIT action, Southern Miss earned the league’s automatic bid and will find out its destination late Monday night. C-USA also has hopes for Marshall and Tulane earning a WNIT at-large bid.

The WNIT expanded its field to 48 teams in 2006-07. The eight-team expansion allows for an automatic bid from every conference (31). 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. All games in the single-elimination format are played at the home facilities of participating schools.

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