Texas earns No. 3 seed in 2005 NCAA Championship Tournament
INDIANAPOLIS -- The 64-team field competing for the 2005 NCAA Division I Women's Basketball Championship was announced Sunday by the NCAA Division I Women's Basketball Committee, and the University of Texas (21-8) drew a No. 3 seed in the tournament. First- and second-round games will be played at eight sites (with eight teams at each site) on Saturday, March 19 and Monday, March 21 or Sunday, March 22 and Tuesday, March 22. Texas and Texas Tech are co-hosts of an eight-team first-second round competition at Reunion Arena in Dallas. Texas is making its 21st appearance in the NCAA tourney, and will face No. 14 Oral Roberts (22-8), the Mid-Continent champions, in first-round play on Saturday, March 19 in Dallas. The Texas-Oral Roberts winner advances to second-round action (Monday, March 21) to face the winner of the No. 6 Georgia (22-9)-No. 11 Rice (24-8) contest. The other four teams in Dallas and the first-round matchups are: No. 4 seed Texas Tech (22-7) vs. No. 13 Texas-Arlington (21-9) and No. 5 seed North Carolina State (21-7) vs. No. 12 Middle Tennessee State (23-8). All first-round game times will be announced on Monday, March 14. The winner from the Texas/ORU/Georgia/Rice four-team "pod" in Dallas advances to the Regionals (Final 16/Elite Eight) in Chattanooga; the winner out of the other Dallas "pod" (Texas Tech/UTA/N.C. State/Middle Tennessee State) will advance to the Philadelphia Regional. The 16 second-round winners will advance to the four regional sites. The Chattanooga Regional (McKenzie Arena, Chattanooga, Tenn.) and the Tempe Regional (Wells Fargo Arena, Tempe, Ariz.) will be Saturday, March 26 and Monday, March 28, while the Kansas City Regional (Municipal Auditorium, Kansas City, Mo.) and the Philadelphia Regional (The Liacouras Center, Philadelphia) will be Sunday, March 27 and Tuesday, March 29. The four regional winners will meet in the NCAA Women's Final Four, on Sunday and Tuesday, April 3 and 5, at the RCA Dome (28,937) in Indianapolis. LSU (29-2) tops the bracket as the overall No. 1 seed after going undefeated in Southeastern Conference play en route to its first regular-season conference title in school history. Tennessee (26-4), Michigan State (28-3) and North Carolina (27-3) round out the remaining No. 1 seeds. Thirty-one conferences were granted automatic bids for the 2005 championship, and the remaining 33 teams were selected at-large. The Atlantic Coast Conference placed the most teams in the championship bracket with seven, followed the Big 12 Conference with six. Baylor received a No. 2 seed, Texas a No. 3 seed, followed by Texas Tech (No. 4), Kansas State (No. 4), Iowa State (No. 7) and Oklahoma (No. 8). Louisiana Tech and Tennessee continued their appearance streaks as both have participated in all 24 Division I Women's Basketball Championships, while Georgia and Old Dominion are making their 22nd appearances. Texas is making its 21st showing in the NCAA Championship, tying for the third most NCAA appearances all-time with Penn State and Virginia. In the 23-year history of the Division I Women's Basketball Championship, 11 schools have captured the national title, including Texas in 1986. Last year, at the New Orleans Arena in New Orleans, Connecticut won its third consecutive national championship with a 70-61 victory over Tennessee in front of a crowd of 18,211.
|
|
