03-03-2025, 03:10 AM
(03-02-2025, 09:28 PM)81alum Wrote: Does anyone know anything about the NIT and the other minor tournament? If we beat Clemson and got three wins out of one of those tournaments, we could at least make it to a 20 win season.I previously linked to the WBIT (NCAA) and the WNIT (commercial) entries in Wikipedia.
The NCAA's site on the WBIT is https://www.ncaa.com/championships/baske...women/wbit
The top 4 seeds are the first 4 out of the NCAA tournament. Then any conference (co-)champion that didn't make the NCAAs is invited (ie, they won the regular season but didn't win their tourney). I see no guidance on the selection of the remainder of the 32 teams.
The 8-person committee members can be found here. I see no obvious ties to Stanford or the former PAC-12.
In the 2024 bracket (with pre-WBIT-tourney records) were Washington (16-14), Washington State (18-14), Cal (18-14), Santa Clara (24-8), Virginia (15-15). All of those hosted the first round. Washington State lost in the semi-finals. Illinois was 14-15 going into the tournament but won the whole thing.
That year (last year),
- 8th seed in the ACC tourney, UNC was invited to the NCAA tourney.
- Miami (19-12), seeded 9th in the ACC tourney, declined an invitation to the inaugural WBIT.
- Georgia Tech (17-15 before WBIT) was seeded 10th in the ACC and went to the WBIT (did not host; lost big)
- Virginia was seeded 11th in the ACC tourney and lost a close first round game in the WBIT.
As a reminder, this year, Virginia and Stanford had matching conference records, but UVa beat Stanford at UVa. so UVa is seeded 10th and Stanford 11th. Stanford is rated #38 by Massey (up 1 after today's win); Cal #33; Virginia #68; Clemson #70; Louisville #26; Duke #14; Georgia Tech #34 (down 2 after today's loss)
What is it about Indianapolis that it gets so many national championship venues? The NCAA would likely hold surfing championships there. It again hosts the WBIT (last year's champion was 120 miles from home)
Assuming Stanford doesn't win the ACC tourney, it will have at least a 16-14 record (add to that any wins in the ACC tourney). I believe that if Stanford doesn't get blown out by Clemson, Stanford would be a likely choice for the WBIT. Maybe even if they are blown out.
Looking at paths to 20 wins:
If Stanford beats Clemson and Louisville but loses to Duke, my impression is that our ranking may be good enough to get a NCAA invitation. Winning two games in the NCAA tourney when you are a lower seed would be tough. If Stanford isn't invited to the NCAA tourney, then it would be a shoe-in for the WBIT, where it would stand a good chance to win at least 2 games, likely at home.
If Stanford beats Clemson but loses to Louisville and goes to the WBIT, winning 3 games in the WBIT would mean they get to the semi-finals. They maybe would face two teams as good as Louisville on that path.
If Stanford loses to Clemson and is invited to the WBIT, winning 4 games to get to the finals will be a long stretch.
If Stanford wins the first 3 games in the ACC tourney (beats Duke), then it may get a good enough seeding in the NCAA tourney to win at least one game.
Last year the WNIT had 48 teams, including 3 Big Ten teams (no ACC, no PAC-12, no SEC). So, mostly schools that were bigger fish in smaller ponds (half the teams had 20-win seasons).
The tourney finals were played in Illinois, and home-town Saint Louis won.