BATON ROUGE — LSU’s women’s basketball team, under the director of first-year head coach Van Chancellor, will open the 2007-08 season in the Preseason Women’s National Invitational Tournament (WNIT), it was announced on Thursday.
The Lady Tigers, coming off a 30-8 season and a fourth straight appearance in the NCAA Final Four, will host Samford in the opening round of the 2007 Preseason WNIT on Nov. 9 in the Pete Maravich Assembly Center.
“This is an outstanding way to get our season started,” Chancellor said. “We get to open at home and this year’s tournament field has some high quality teams.”
The tournament features a new format this fall, as it moves from single elimination to a three-game guarantee. Teams that lose in the first two rounds will play consolation games on the second weekend, Nov. 16-17.
The event opens Friday, Nov. 9 with all first-round games. Second-round games will be played on Nov. 11-13, semifinals will be on Nov. 14-15 and the championship is scheduled for Sunday, Nov. 18. All games are played on home campuses, which are determined after each round.
The Preseason WNIT field includes eighth other teams that played in the postseason last season – Delaware, Delaware State, Maryland, Michigan State, Notre Dame and TCU also played in the NCAA Tournament along with the Lady Tigers. East Tennessee State and Western Kentucky advanced to the Postseason WNIT field. They will be joined by Evansville, IUPUI, Marshall, Miami (Ohio), Princeton, Radford, and Samford in this fall’s Preseason WNIT.
Nine teams will play in the Preseason WNIT for the first time in their school history: Delaware State, ETSU, IUPUI, LSU, Marshall, Michigan State, Princeton, Radford and Samford.
First-round Preseason WNIT games
Game Times TBA | 2006-07 team records in parentheses
Friday, Nov. 9, 2007
Princeton (13-15) at Maryland (28-6)
Delaware State (20-13) at Delaware (26-6)
ETSU (20-12) at Western Kentucky (23-9)
Miami, Ohio (12-18) at Notre Dame (20-12)
Samford (18-13) at LSU (30-8)
Radford (20-10) at TCU (21-11)
Marshall (15-15) at Evansville (19-12)
IUPUI (14-16) at Michigan State (24-9)