Newport News, Va. – Atlantic 10 Women’s Basketball Champion Dayton and nationally-ranked St. Bonaventure were among the 64 teams selected to the 2012 NCAA Women’s Basketball Championship, as announced Monday evening by the organization’s Women’s Basketball Committee. This is the 10th consecutive year that the league has received multiple bids. Dayton (23-6/12-2 A-10) is seeded 11th and will compete in the Raleigh Region, while St. Bonaventure (29-3/14-0 A-10) is the fifth seed in the Raleigh Region.
Dayton earned the 11th seed in the Raleigh Region and will face sixth-seeded Arkansas (23-8), which secured an at-large bid out of the SEC. The two teams will meet on Saturday, March 17 at the Erwin Center on the campus of the Texas A&M University in College Station. Tip-off is set for 4:05 pm EDT on ESPN2. The winner of the Dayton/Arkansas match-up will square-off with the winner of the #3 Texas A&M (22-10)/#14 Albany (23-9) contest.
The Flyers, who earned the league’s automatic bid after claiming their first A-10 Championship, will make the school’s third-straight trip to the NCAA Tournament and fourth consecutive postseason appearance. Lowe’s Senior CLASS Award Finalist and A-10 Championship Most Outstanding Player Justine Raterman paces UD on the season, as the senior forward averages team-bests of 14.4 points and 6.3 rebounds each time out.
No. 25/25 St. Bonaventure, which earned an at-large bid, will make the program’s first-ever trip to the NCAA Tournament and the school’s fourth consecutive postseason appearance. The fifth-seeded Bonnies, playing in the Raleigh Region, will face #12 Florida Gulf Coast (29-2), winner of the Atlantic Sun Conference Championship, on Sunday, March 18 at Florida State’s Donald L. Tucker Center in Tallahassee. Tip-time is slated for 2:30 pm EDT on ESPN2. The winner of the SBU/FGSU contest will face the winner of the #4 Georgia (22-8)/#13 Marist (25-7) outing. Florida Gulf Coast is also making its first trip to the NCAA Tournament.
The Bonnies, who went unbeaten in A-10 play (14-0) are led by the senior duo of Megan Van Tatenhove and Jessica Jenkins – both All-Conference first-team selections. Jenkins averages a team-best 14.3 points per game and is the NCAA’s active career 3-point leader, while Van Tatenhove puts up 13.4 points and corrals a team-high 6.0 rebounds a game.
All 63 games of the 2012 NCAA Division I Women’s Basketball Championship will air on ESPN networks for the eighth consecutive year. ESPN and ESPN2 will present its telecasts in a whip-around format with home market protection through the first two rounds. ESPN3 will offer complete telecasts of all 63 games, while ESPNU will offer select ESPN and ESPN2 early-round games in their entirety. The final 15 games, beginning with the Regional Semifinals, will have national telecast windows on ESPN or ESPN2.
More Atlantic 10 Conference teams are expected to advance to postseason play as the WNIT bracket is announced later this evening.
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