UTA women to play in WNIT at Tulane, which almost ended UConn’s streak
The UT Arlington women’s basketball is going to the WNIT for the first time since 2009 and will face a road game against the team that almost ended Connecticut’s wining streak at 100 games.
UTA will play at Tulane (16-14) on Thursday night in New Orleans in a WNIT first-round game.
The game time was to be announced Tuesday.
Tulane, a member of the American Athletic Conference, narrowly lost 63-60 to AAC rival UConn on Feb. 18. The Green Wave missed a desperation 3-point shot at the buzzer.
That was the game after UConn had beaten South Carolina for its 100th consecutive victory. It was the second closest margin of defeat during UConn’s current streak.
The Mavericks (22-8) have made four appearances in postseason tournament in their history, twice in the NCAA Tournament (2005 and 2007) and twice in the WNIT (1998 and 2009).
On Saturday, UTA was eliminated from the Sun Belt Championship semifinals by the league’s champion, Troy, in New Orleans.
UTA now gladly heads back to New Orleans.
“We are thrilled to be playing in the postseason,” UTA coach Krista Gerlich said.
“Back to New Orleans to play Tulane, this will make three weeks in a row we’ve played in Louisiana. We’d go to the ends of the earth if it means we’re still playing in March. Such a big step for our program.”
The Mavs and Tulane are 1-1 in their series, last meeting in New Oreleans in 2006 when Tulane won.
Tulane has lost three straight since the heartbreaker against UConn, losing 56-51 to UCF and 57-56 to Memphis in the Green Wave’s regular season closers and 61-57 to UCF in the first round of the AAC tournament. Tulane, with a four-game losing streak heading into the WNIT, was 7-9 in conference.
The Green Wave is going to its 18th postseason tournament in the 23-season Tulane career of coach Lisa Stockton.
In 2005, after Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans that August, Stockton and her team relocated to the Texas Tech campus in Lubbock for the semester.
This story was originally published March 14, 2017 at 1:33 AM with the headline "UTA women to play in WNIT at Tulane, which almost ended UConn’s streak."