Miami Hurricanes WBB Will Host First Two Rounds
The Miami Hurricanes Women’s Basketball Team got what they hoped for when the Women’s 64 team NCAA Tournament field was released Monday night. The Hurricanes will host a four team subregional at the Watsco Center commencing Saturday.
Fifth seeded, 25th ranked Marquette and 12th Seed Quinnipiac will tipoff at 1:30 on Saturday with Miami set to face Florida Gulf Coast at 4:00. The Hurricanes and Eagles will be televised on ESPN2.
This will be their second meeting all-time. Miami won the only previous meeting 70-57 exactly seven years to the day as this year’s meeting in the 2010 WNIT.
The winner of the four team “tournament” will travel to Stockton, California for the Sweet 16. If the seeds hold, Stanford will have a decided home court advantage. The other top seeds in the Stockton region are South Carolina and Florida State.
Miami is hosting the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 1993. They won both of their previous NCAA Tournament games in Coral Gables. Miami has a 6-1 record all-time at home in the postseason.
The Hurricanes are 23-8 heading into the NCAA Tournament. They went 10-6 in the ACC and finished in seventh place. They upset second seeded Florida State in the Quarterfinals of the ACC Tournament before falling to Duke in the Semifinals.
Miami had four regular season wins over ranked teams including the upset over Florida State who was ranked 8/12 going into the conference tournament. The potential second round matchup with Golden Eagles in the second round after FGCU’s Eagles is intriguing.
Marquette is coached by former Miami assistant Carolyn Kieger. The Golden Eagles had an impressive run through the Big East Tournament defeating conference regular season co-champions Creighton and DePaul to punch their ticket to the NCAA Tournament.
Hosting the opening two rounds is a huge milestone for the Hurricanes and Head Coach Katie Meier. It also means a ton to the players. Senior Guard Jessica Thomas jumped up and hugged teammate Adrienne Motley as she yelled “We’re hosting! We’re hosting!”
The Hurricanes have had mixed results the past two seasons. They won their first round game against Washington as an 11 seed in Iowa City two seasons ago. Last season they were upset in the first round as a five seed by South Dakota State in Palo Alto, California.
The 2,500 plus miles the Hurricanes had to travel in the NCAA Tournament last season was the most in the country. Getting to play the first two rounds at home was important and well earned. Katie Meier made sure her team knew that was the case:
“You all earned this, this is not a gift, you earned the opportunity to host,” Meier shouted at her team Monday night. “So, we’re going to play our best basketball of the year in front of all of our fans.”
“It’s a big moment. We’ve been a three seed a couple times and by the nature of some of the ways they changed the rules, we didn’t get to host. We just haven’t had a break. It’s just so nice. We earned this, I felt good about our chances, but you never know. To see those kids erupt like that…it was amazing”
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The moment was emotional for Meier as she welled up making the statement. Four Seniors, including Jessica Thomas, Adrienne Motley and Keyanna Harris will get a chance to play two more games at home three weeks after Senior Day.