The University of Maine women’s basketball team will continue its season in the suburbs of Philadelphia.
Villanova University’s athletics website on Monday night revealed that the Black Bears will visit Pennsylvania for Women’s National Invitation Tournament first-round game at 7 p.m. Friday.
Coach Richard Barron’s Black Bears (23-7), ranked No. 95 in the NCAA Rating Percentage Index (RPI), were the regular-season champions of the America East Conference. Villanova of the Big East Conference (76 RPI) was 19-13 this season, including 9-2 on its home court.
The third-seeded Wildcats lost to No. 2 DePaul in the Big East tournament semifinals.
“We are very excited to be in the WNIT field,” Barron said in a press release. “There are so many good teams represented and it is a great indicator of the progress that our program has shown. Playing at Villanova is a great test for our team and one that really excites us.”
First-round games will be played between Wednesday and Friday, with the winners advancing to the second round, which will be contested March 21-24.
The WNIT field includes a pair of top-50 teams in the RPI in No 45 Arkansas State and No. 48 Duquesne. There are 17 other teams among the top 75 in the country, including Penn (51), Stetson (54), Fresno State (55), San Diego (56), and St. Mary’s (60).
UMaine is only the 35th-ranked team among the 64 in the WNIT pool with an RPI of 95. There are 35 teams with at least 20 victories, including eight regular-season conference champions.
This marks the fourth WNIT appearance for UMaine, which last participated in the tournament 2005, when it lost 74-59 at West Virginia. The Black Bears are 1-4 in the event, their lone win a 68-48 verdict over Wyoming in 1990.
This will be the second straight postseason tournament for UMaine, which went 1-1 last year in the 16-team Women’s Basketball Invitational.
Like the NCAA Division I Women’s Basketball Championship, the WNIT is a 64-team, single-elimination tournament. The event consists of 32 automatic qualifiers, one from each conference, and 32 at-large teams.
The WNIT is arranged based in part on geography in order to facilitate easier travel, since all games are played on the home courts of the higher seeds throughout the tournament.
The teams that were offered automatic berths to the WNIT either were the highest finishers in the conference regular-season standings that were not selected for the NCAAs. Any team considered for an at-large big must have an overall record of .500 or better.
America East teams are 7-17 all-time in the WNIT, which selected both former league member Boston University and Hartford in 2013.
Rutgers won 2014 WNIT crown, beating Texas-El Paso 54-52.
The postseason WNIT has been contested since 1998, second only to the NCAA tournament, which was initiated in 1982. The WNIT championship game will be held Saturday, April 4, at 3 p.m. and will be televised live on the CBS Sports Network.