March 16, 2009

2009 NCAA Women's Basketball Tournament Bracket

FORT WORTH—TCU was selected for an at-large bid to the NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament Monday, marking the program’s eighth selection in the last nine years. The Lady Frogs were anointed the No. 10 seed in the Raleigh regional and will face 7th-seeded South Dakota State on Sunday in Lubbock, Texas. The contest, which tips off at 6 p.m., will be televised by ESPN2.

The winner of the TCU-South Dakota State game will face the winner of the matchup featuring second-seeded Baylor and 15th-seeded UT San Antonio game on Tuesday. The top seed in the Raleigh bracket is Maryland, which the Lady Frogs defeated in the season opener.

The Frogs posted a 20-10 overall record this season and finished third in the Mountain West Conference with a 12-4 mark in league play. The team was eliminated from the MWC Tournament last Wednesday by UNLV in the second round.

South Dakota State, ranked 16th and 15th in the latest respective releases of the Associated Press Top-25 and ESPN/USA Today coaches’ polls, went 31-2 this season and won the Summit League regular season and tournament championships to earn an automatic NCAA Tournament bid. The Jackrabbits, which went 17-1 in conference play and enter the tournament with a 17-game winning streak, will be making their first-ever NCAA Tournament appearance.

SDSU and TCU share two common opponents this season in Utah and Maryland. The Jacks beat Utah, 70-58, in Brookings, S.D., before dropping a 68-56 decision to Maryland in the Caribbean Challenge in Cancun, Mexico. The Frogs split with Utah and defeated Maryland, then ranked No. 3, in Fort Worth in the season opener for both teams.

The NCAA Tournament bid is the eighth all-time for TCU, which has reached the second round of the tournament in five of the previous seven trips to the Big Dance. TCU advanced to the second round in 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004 and 2006. The squad fell to seventh-seeded Ole Miss in the first round of the Dayton Regional as the No. 10 seed, 88-74, in its last NCAA appearance in 2007.

TCU was one of three Mountain West Conference squads picked for the tournament. Utah, which won the conference tournament last weekend, is the No. 9 seed in the Raleigh region and will face No. 8 Villanova Sunday in College Park, Md., while San Diego State also earned an at-large bid as the No. 10 seed in the Berkeley Regional. The Aztecs will play No. 7 DePaul Saturday evening in San Diego.

Beginning Saturday, March 21, through Tuesday, April 7, ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, ESPN360.com, ESPN FULL COURT and ESPN Mobile TV will combine to present all 63 games from the NCAA Tournament. During the first two rounds, ESPN and ESPN2 will present 48 games within 12 telecast windows in a whip-around format with home market protection.

ESPN360.com will offer complete game telecasts of all 63 games, while ESPNU will offer select ESPN and ESPN2 early-round games in their entirety.  The final 15 games (regional semifinals on) will have national telecast windows on ESPN or ESPN2.

For ticket information, call (817) 257-FROG or visit www.GoFrogs.com.

TCU'S HISTORY IN THE NCAA TOURNAMENT
2001 - East Region, No. 11 Seed
(11) TCU 77, (6) Penn State 75 (Thomas Assembly Center - Ruston, La.)
(3) Louisiana Tech 80, (11) TCU 59 (Thomas Assembly Center - Ruston, La.)

2002 - East Region, No. 8 Seed
(8) TCU 55, (9) Indiana 45 (Cameron Indoor Stadium - Durham, N.C.)
(1) Duke 76, (8) TCU 66 (Cameron Indoor Stadium - Durham, N.C.)

2003 - East Region, No. 9 Seed
(9) TCU 50, (8) Michigan State 47 (Gampel Pavilion - Storrs, Conn.)
(1) Connecticut 81, (9) TCU 66 (Gampel Pavilion - Storrs, Conn.)

2004 - West Region, No. 6 Seed
(6) TCU 70, (11) Temple 57 (The Liacouras Center - Philadelphia, Pa.)
(3) Georgia 85, (6) TCU 71 (The Liacouras Center - Philadelphia, Pa.)

2005 - Tempe Region, No. 7 Seed
(10) Oregon 58, (7) TCU 55 (Bank of America Arena - Seattle, Wash.)

2006 - Cleveland Region, No. 11 Seed
(11) TCU 69, (6) Texas A&M 65 (Sovereign Bank Arena - Trenton, N.J.)
(3) Rutgers 82, (11) TCU 48 (Sovereign Bank Arena - Trenton, N.J.)

2007 - Dayton Region, No. 10 Seed
(7) Ole Miss 88, (10) TCU 74 (Hartford Civic Center - Hartford, Conn.)