For the first time since 2021, the UNLV women’s basketball team won’t be in the NCAA Tournament, but the Lady Rebels’ season will continue.
The NCAA Tournament bracket was unveiled Sunday, featuring San Diego State as the Mountain West’s automatic qualifier and lone representative.
Instead, UNLV (25-7) will participate in the Women’s Basketball Invitation Tournament as a No. 2 seed and will host Big West regular-season champion Hawaii (22-9) in the first round at 6:30 p.m. Thursday at Cox Pavilion.
After the Aztecs upset the top-seeded Lady Rebels in the semifinals of the conference tournament Tuesday at the Thomas & Mack Center, La Rocque emphasized that her players “deserve” an at-large bid because of their strength of schedule and history in the conference. San Diego State coach Stacie Terry-Hutson used the same argument as she gave her evaluation of UNLV’s case to make the cut.
Athletic director Erick Harper also expressed that sentiment after the Lady Rebels beat Boise State to clinch their fourth straight regular-season Mountain West championship last month.
Hours before the NCAA Tournament field was announced, the Mountain West’s official X account released a set of infographics supporting UNLV one last time.
Captioned “A resume worthy of an At-Large bid,” the conference’s slides included statistics about the strength of the league and UNLV’s record.
In one of its most compelling points, the Mountain West noted that UNLV didn’t have any “bad losses,” which the NCAA defines as defeats to teams with a NET ranking of 150 or worse. The Lady Rebels were 14-0 against teams that fit that criteria, tying them with the likes of Oregon, Harvard and Iowa State — all teams that made the tournament. Washington had a “bad loss” and still earned an at-large bid.
The Mountain West also called attention to the fact that the Lady Rebels had the toughest strength of wins (.504) compared to the projected “last four in” the tournament, but it didn’t make a difference for the selection committee.
UNLV’s resume also didn’t matter to make the 32-team cut for the WBIT, as conference regular-season champions automatically qualify.
That’s how Hawaii earned a berth. The Rainbow Wahine went 16-4 in Big West play, including a 14-game win streak, to earn the regular-season title.
The winner of Hawaii-UNLV will face Florida or Northern Iowa in the second round on Sunday.
Contact Callie Fin at [email protected]. Follow @CallieJLaw on X.
Up next
Who: Hawaii at UNLV
What: Women’s Basketball Invitation Tournament first-round game
When: 6:30 p.m. Thursday
Where: Cox Pavilion
TV: ESPN+ (streaming)
