Rick Insell Leads Lady Volunteers to Women's NIT Title!
Coach Rick Insell and the Middle Tennessee State women's basketball team will play in the WNIT, which begins March 19.
Middle Tennessee State women's basketball will be playing in the Women's National Invitational Tournament . The Lady Raiders' first-round opponent and the 48-team tournament bracket won't be released until March 16. It will be MTSU's fifth WNIT appearance in the past decade and sixth in the past 12 seasons, all under coach Rick Insell .
First-round games will be played March 19-21; Round 2 will be March 22-24. The Super 16 will be held March 25-27 and the Great 8 on March 28-30. The semifinals will be held March 31-April 1, with the championship game on April 4 at a site to be determined.
Teams in the tournament include automatic qualifiers (those who were No. 2 seeds in their conference tournaments but did not receive an NCAA Tournament bid): Abilene Christian (23-10); Alcorn State (17-13); Florida International (20-11); Lamar (20-10); Mercyhurst (15-16); Montana State (25-7); Radford (22-12); Maryland Eastern Shore (19-14); and Youngstown State (24-9). MORE: How MTSU assistant's wife has battled breast cancer, put sports in perspective At-large teams invited: Air Force (16-18), Arkansas State (24-9), Army (24-7), Austin Peay (19-13), Binghamton (19-12), Bradley (20-12), Cleveland State (24-9), Drexel (21-10), Florida Gulf Coast (16-15), George Washington (15-17), Illinois State (20-13), LaSalle (18-13), Lehigh (17-14), Loyola Chicago (14-17), Marshall (23-9), Merrimack (19-12), Monmouth (20-11), Morehead State (18-14), NJIT (18-12), Norfolk State (18-14), Northern Colorado (22-10), Ohio (18-13), Pepperdine (19-12), Portland (18-14), Purdue Fort Wayne (20-13), Sam Houston (18-12), San Francisco (18-14), South Alabama (16-18), South Dakota (23-9), Southern Indiana (21-10), Southern Utah (19-12), St.
Bonaventure (16-15), Stetson (20-11), UC Davis (23-10), UMBC (16-14), Utah Valley (16-14), UTRGV (20-13) and Wake Forest (14-17). MTSU is making its second appearance in the WNIT since the 2021-22 season, when it reached the semifinals. That was followed by back-to-back trips to the NCAA Tournament and an appearance in the WBIT last season, where it fell to Belmont in the opening round.