Cal Women's Basketball Traveling To Cal Poly For WNIT First Round Match-up

by norcalnick on Mar 14, 2011 9:11 PM PDT in California Golden Bears Women's Basketball

The Bears will have the chance to defend their Women's National Invitational Tournament Championship this year after getting picked as an at-large for the 64 team post-season competition. Cal will face Cal Poly, who automatically qualified for the WNIT out of the Big West conference. The Mustangs finished 18-12 overall and finished in a tie for first in the Big West conference. But losing to UC Davis in the Big West tournament relegated Cal Poly to the NIT. The Bears and the Mustangs share a few common opponents - both teams have beaten Long Beach St. and Cal State Fullerton (Cal Poly twice each) and like Cal the Mustangs lost to Arizona St. in Tempe.

The WNIT places their teams by region, and fellow Pac-10 conference mates Arizona and USC both accepted invites. Former Cal opponents St. Mary's, Yale, and Portland St. also received bids. If the Bears advance past Cal Poly they might end up facing soon-to-be conference foe Colorado, who earned the Big 12's automatic bid. Also, three of the four teams that reached last year's WNIT final four return - the Bears are joined by the Michigan Wolverines and the Illinois St. Redbirds.

The first round game will be held in San Luis Obispo on Thursday night. Game time will be announced tomorrow. You can view the entire bracket here. Go Bears!

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So we are in the same region as Colorado, USC and Arizona. Only one Pac-10/12 team has a chance to make it to the Final Four. That’s understandable in the WNIT, where they are concerned about travel costs. But, meanwhile, Stanford and UCLA are the #1 and #3 seeds in the same region (Spokane), which seems kind of unfair to the Pac-10. Arizona State is a #7 in the Dayton Region.

I have accepted Twist's unconditional surrender.

by CalBear81 on Mar 14, 2011 11:04 PM PDT reply actions

Poor UC Davis. They are all excited about getting their first NCAA bid ever. But it won’t last long: their first-round game is against Stanford at Maples.

I have accepted Twist's unconditional surrender.

by CalBear81 on Mar 15, 2011 12:39 PM PDT up reply actions

Well, Stanford does have a history of losing to 16 seeds . . .

The #1 greatest threat to America: BEARS

by norcalnick on Mar 15, 2011 1:35 PM PDT up reply actions

pqtm. But I will be interested in seeing the Stanford-UCLA game, assuming they both make it that far. In the Pac-10 Tournament it seemed like UCLA had gained quite a bit on Stanford, and they just might be able to pull the upset in their fourth meeting of the year.

I have accepted Twist's unconditional surrender.

by CalBear81 on Mar 15, 2011 1:54 PM PDT up reply actions

I figure that the procedure for picking which team hosts must have changed, because how else would they have picked for this game to be in SLO? But no, it still is:

The host site for each game is selected by the WNIT committee based on several factors such as fan base, host bids, facility availability, tournament seed, travel constraints, etc. A team’s desire or ability to host or not to host has absolutely no bearing on that team being chosen for the 64-team field.

Total madness.

by paleodan on Mar 15, 2011 1:04 AM PDT reply actions

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