Women's basketball makes WNIT
Published March 14, 2007
The women's basketball team received a bid to the WNIT on a night that also brought the end to the career of a coach with more wins than Bob Knight.
With the WNIT's new system this year, the total field was increased to 48 teams and each conference received an automatic bid. The bid was to go to the team in the conference that had the best in-conference record of all teams not in the NCAA Tournament. The team was also required to have an overall winning record.
The Texas Longhorns, with a 6-10 conference record and 18-14 overall record, were in line to receive the Big 12 bid.
But immediately following the lack of an NCAA invitation, Texas coach Jody Conradt, whose 900 wins are second only to Tennessee coach Pat Summitt, announced her retirement. Assistant Director of the WNIT Renee Carlson said the Longhorns declined their WNIT bid, making Missouri the Big 12's automatic bid.
The Tigers will face off against the winner of Thursday's game between Wyoming and Nevada at a date and time to be determined.
The men's basketball team was not selected for the NIT.
But the team, which will only lose senior Marcus Watkins next season, will pick up junior transfer DeMarre Carroll, who will be eligible to compete.
Coach Mike Anderson said he is focused on building on this season's improvement into next year.
"Certainly I am disappointed that we were not selected for the NIT and that our guys won't have the opportunity to continue playing," Anderson said. "But the biggest key to me was the improvement that our team showed throughout the year. We had some good wins, but this shows us that there is still some work to be done."
Junior forward Marshall Brown said he also hopes the team continues to improve.
"I feel like we got a lot better this year," Brown said. "A few games here and there and who knows what would have happened? Hopefully we'll continue our improvement this summer and at this time next season, the outcome will be completely different."
Sophomore guard Matt Lawrence also said the team is moving in a positive direction into the 2007-08 season.
"With the progress we made, the bulk of our team returning and some key additions coming into our program, it shows us that we are headed in a positive direction," he said.
The men's NIT had fewer at-large bids this season than in the past.
This season, teams that won regular season conference championships but not conference tournaments began receiving automatic bids.
This season, eight such teams received bids.
In addition, the NIT field was cut from 40 to 32 teams in an effort to eliminate play-in games and restore prestige to the tournament.
Previously, the teams believed to be the eight weakest seeds would have to play an extra game to reach the main draw.