Women's basketball receives automatic bid to Women's National Invitation Tournament

The Central Michigan women's basketball team's season isn't over just yet.

Despite a first round exit from the Mid-American Conference Tournament Wednesday, the Chippewas will have a chance to redeem themselves.

The Chippewas were defeated 67-63 in the quarterfinals by rival Western Michigan in Cleveland, but the team earned an automatic bid to the Women's National Invitation Tournament (WNIT) due to their overall success this season.

The Chippewas entered the MAC Tournament as the No. 1 seed after finishing the regular season 23-7 and 15-3 in conference play. It was CMU's first outright MAC regular season title in 32 years.

The WNIT is a postseason tournament similar to the NCAA Tournament. It comprises of 64 teams with all 32 Division I conferences receiving one automatic berth and 32 teams receiving at-large bids from the WNIT selection committee. Each game of the tournament will be played on the higher seeded teams home floor.

The 64-team bracket will be announced after the NCAA Tournament is announced on Monday night. The WNIT committee will then release the full bracket between 11:30 p.m. and midnight on Monday, according to the WNIT website.

The times for the first-round games will be announced on Tuesday. The first round will begin Wednesday, March 15th and will go through March 17th. The second will be March 18-21, followed by the third round from March 22-24, the fourth round March 25-27 with the semifinals going from March 29th through the 30th.

The Championship game will be played at 3 p.m. on April 1 and can been seen on CBS Sports Network.

CMU lost to Indiana University – Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI), 63-55 in the first round of last season's WNIT. The Chippewas have never won a game in any postseason tournament outside of the MAC Tournament. 

Share: