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UD women’s basketball in NCAA tourney field
12:01 p.m., March 13, 2007--The Road to Cleveland will begin in East Lansing, Mich., for the University of Delaware women's basketball team, which has made the NCAA Division I championship tournament as an at-large entry. The Fightin' Blue Hens are one of three Colonial Athletic Association teams in the field, joining conference champion Old Dominion University and runner up James Madison University. The Hens are a No. 12 seed and will meet host Michigan State University, a No. 5 seed, on its home court, the Breslin Student Events Center, at 7 p.m., Sunday, March 18. The tournament is being broadcast on ESPN2. The tournament semifinals and championship will be played April 1 and April 3 in Cleveland. UD will begin the tournament in East Lansing and would advance through the Greensboro, N.C., region. For tickets to Sunday's game, contact the Michigan State ticket office at (517) 355-1610. "Being selected for the NCAA tournament justifies where we are as a program," UD Head Coach Tina Martin said from the Carpenter Club at the Bob Carpenter Center, where she and the team, family and friends gathered to watch the selection show. "We are going to go out and play as hard as we possibly can." UD finished the season 26-5, falling to James Madison in the semifinals of the CAA championship tournament played at the Bob Carpenter Center. Old Dominion defeated James Madison in the title game. This is the second NCAA tournament appearance for Martin and the Hens, and the first as an at-large entry. The Hens were last in the tournament in 2001 when they won the American East Conference championship. That year, they traveled to North Carolina State University and fell 76-57 to the Wolfpack. UD features an All-America candidate in senior guard Tyresa Smith, the CAA defensive player of the year who is averaging 19.8 points and 7.6 rebounds per game. Two other key seniors are forward Chrissy Fisher, who is averaging 13.4 points and 7.6 rebounds per game, and point guard Alena Koshansky, who amassed 103 assists this season. Michigan State is 23-8 and finished third in the Big 10 Conference. The Spartans have reached the NCAA tournament each of the last five seasons. Among those losses was a 57-53 loss at home to Hofstra University of the CAA in November. The Hens swept Hofstra 59-56 and 67-59 this season. The Spartans are led by Victoria Lucas-Perry, who is averaging 13.5 points and 5.8 rebounds per game, and Allyssa DeHaan, who is averaging 12.6 points and 7.5 rebounds. Joanne McCallie, who previously served at the University of Maine in the America East, is the head coach at Michigan State. The winner of the UD-Michigan State game will face the winner of the contest between Rutgers University, which is the No. 4 seed at 22-8, and East Carolina University, which is the No. 13 seed at 19-13. The second round game will be played Tuesday, March 20, also in East Lansing. Also competing in East Lansing will be No. 15 seed Delaware State University, which won the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference and will take on No. 2 seed Vanderbilt University of the Southeastern Conference. Vanderbilt is 27-5. CAA member Old Dominion earned a No. 7 seed and will take on No. 10 seed Florida State University in the first round of the tournament, and James Madison earned a No. 9 seed and will take on the No. 8 seed University of Pittsburgh. This is the first time the conference has placed three teams into the NCAA tournament. For more information about the women's tournament, including a link to the bracket, see the NCAA web site at [www.ncaasports.com/basketball/womens]. Photo by Duane Perry |
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