The Indiana University Women’s Basketball team will “Dance” at Assembly Hall as a #3 seed in the 2022 NCAA Championship Tournament. As announced on Sunday evening, IU will play in the Bridgeport, Connecticut (East) Region of the Tournament, and their first game will be against #14 seed Charlotte on Saturday, March 19th.
“Historic for this program,” said IU Head Coach Teri Moren shortly after receiving the selection news. “We’ve never hosted, so we’re excited about that. Grateful that we can have Hoosier Nation included in this moment with us,” she said with a large smile.
Indiana, who is currently 22-8, was a top ten ranked team throughout the entire regular season. The Hoosiers played half of their 30 games to date, against other ranked teams, including 3 against perennial Big East Conference Champs, Maryland, for which they won 2 of the 3 contests. This year marked the first ever victories against Maryland.
Under Coach Moren, Indiana has a string of 7 consecutive seasons with 20 or more wins and has improved significantly each year. The program has gone from 2018 NIT Champs, to winning an NCAA Tournament game, to making the NCAA Elite Eight, to becoming an NCAA #3 seed.
“When we arrived 8 years ago this is really what we envisioned,” said Coach Moren about catapulting the Indiana University Women’s Basketball Program to national recognition. Coach credited the players with the incremental progression of program success. “Without them, this would not have been possible. They all believed in the vision of what we wanted to do . . . to win championships.”
Indiana had a rough ending to the regular season, having to play 6 games in a dozen days, 4 of which were against other ranked teams; although they followed up with a nice stretch in the Big Ten Conference Tournament. Indiana defeated Rutgers, with whom they had not previously played for 2 years; defeated (then #11) Maryland; and defeated (then #12 and top seeded) Ohio State. The Hoosiers fell by 7 in the championship game to NCAA #2 seeded Iowa.
“[The Big Ten Finals] was a hard loss for us,” IU Graduate Guard Ali Patberg told the South Central Indiana News Network. “But we are in a really good place now, ready to make a strong run in the NCAA’s.”
One would have to like IU’s chances to make a strong run, potentially getting the opportunity to take on UCONN in a Sweet Sixteen match-up. But before that could happen, Indiana would need to get past Charlotte, who went 22-9 this season and won the Conference USA Tournament, and the winner of the Kentucky/Princeton game.
Kentucky would be hungry for another chance against Indiana in Bloomington, should both win their First Round games. IU took out the Wildcats 88-67 at Assembly Hall as their home opening game on November 14th. However, Kentucky is perhaps one of the hottest teams in the league right now, winning their last 10 straight, including getting past #6 LSU, #18 Tennessee, and #1 South Carolina to win the 2022 SEC Tournament.
As a #3 seed, Assembly Hall will host the first two rounds of games, March 19th and 21st.
The First-Round pairings in the Bridgeport Region include:
- #1 NC State vs #16 LGWD / MTSM
- #8 Washington State vs #9 Kansas State
- #5 Notre Dame vs #12 Massachusetts
- #4 Oklahoma vs #13 IUPUI
- #6 Kentucky vs #11 Princeton
- #3 Indiana vs #14 Charlotte
- #7 UCF vs #10 Florida
- #2 Connecticut vs #15 Mercer
Should Indiana advance, their region’s Sweet Sixteen and Elite Eight will be held in Bridgeport, Connecticut. This year, the Final Four will convene at the Target Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota from April 1-3rd, where the 2022 National Champion will be crowned.
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