Fans may have thought when the South Florida women’s basketball team was left out of the NCAA Tournament that it was a snub, but the team didn’t have time to dwell on the exclusion from one tournament because they had to get ready for another one.
After a 20-12 season and a third-place finish in the American Athletic Conference, the Lady Bulls accepted an invitation to play in the Women’s National Invitational Tournament, the second tier postseason college basketball tournament.
USF automatically qualified for the tournament by being the highest ranked team from their conference that was not invited to participate in the NCAA Tournament.
In the opening round of the tournament, the Bulls drew North Carolina A&T, the automatic qualifier from the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference. NC A&T finished their season 24-7 but were a lower seed in the tournament.
The Bulls beat the Aggies at the Sun Dome on Friday 56-50 in front of 1,105 fans.
USF’s Alicia Jenkins scored 17 points and pulled down 11 rebounds, to earn her 13th double double of the season. Courtney Williams almost had a double double of her own. Williams dropped 14 points with nine rebounds.
Senior Inga Orekhova reached a personal milestone in the victory. Orekhova’s 15 points put her over 1,000 points for her career. She became the 20th player in school history to pass the 1,000-point mark.
The Bulls’ win set them up for a possible second-round matchup with ACC automatic-qualifier Miami, but Stetson beat the Hurricanes 70-63 in Miami to set up a second round matchup at the Sun Dome on Sunday.
In their second round matchup, the Bulls beat Stetson 75-56 to move on to the third round of the tournament.
“The only way you can prove that you should be in the [NCAA] tournament is by winning this one,” said Bulls head coach Jose Fernandez after the game.
The Bulls took a 75-56 lead into halftime and opened the second half with a 20-2 run that put the game away. USF moves on to play George Washington on Thursday at the Sun Dome. George Washington advanced by beating Villanova 76-66 on Sunday.
The Women’s NIT was founded in 1998 after the National Women’s Invitational Tournament folded. Unlike the men’s NIT, the women’s tournament is not sponsored by the NCAA. The tournament features 64 teams and all games, including the championship, are held at the arena of the higher seed.
