Tulsa Makes School's First NCAA Women's Basketball Tournament Appearance
March 13, 2006
Complete Release in PDF Format
IRVING, Texas - Tulsa earned its first-ever NCAA Women's Basketball Tournament berth after recording the school's first regular season conference championship and only league tournament title in program history. Tulsa will be the No. 12 seed in the San Antonio Region, the Division I Women's Basketball Committee announced early this evening. The Golden Hurricane (25-5) will play No. 5 seed North Carolina State (19-11), who were handed a 90-69 loss by one of the top four NCAA No. 1 seed's North Carolina in the ACC Tournament semifinals this week. Tulsa battles the Wolfpack, which has won six of its last eight games and will enter its third consecutive NCAA tournament having played the toughest schedule in the country, on Saturday, March 18 at Allstate Arena in Chicago, Illinois. The game time will be determined by ESPN and announced on Monday. Playing in the San Antonio region, the winner will advance to face either No. 4 seed and host DePaul or No. 13 seed Liberty on Monday, March 20. Liberty eliminated the Blue Demons from last year's NCAA Tournament in the second round. The Hurricane features junior Jillian Robbins, the 2006 C-USA Player of the Year, Defensive Player of the Year and Tournament MVP. Robbins paced Tulsa with an 18.1 scoring average while also pulling down 13.0 rebounds per game. She became only the third player in league history to lead the league in both scoring and rebounding. Robbins ranks among the nation's top-25 in four statistical categories, including third in rebounding (13.1), 20th in blocked shots (2.3), 22nd in steals (2.9) and 23rd in field goal percentage (.556). In addition, seniors Megan Moody and Emily Jaskowiak averaged 12.4 and 11.6 points, respectively. Fellow senior Kara Pongonis-Paslay scored at a 9.4 clip and dished out 5.2 assists for the Hurricane this season. Paslay, who is Tulsa's all-time leader in 3-pointers made, ranks seventh in the nation for 3-point field goal percentage at .453 percent. Tulsa is one of eight teams making their first trip to the tournament this year and one of 31 conference tournament champions granted automatic bids for the 2006 championship. Among those making their initial NCAA debut are Army, UC-Riverside, Florida Atlantic, Northern Arizona, Sacred Heart, USF, and Southeast Missouri State. The NCAA appearance comes 10 years after TU reinstituted the women's basketball program in 1996-97. The first-ever Selection Monday announcement of the 64-team field marked the 14th consecutive year ESPN has unveiled the pairings. NCAA TOURNAMENT FIRST ROUND PAIRINGS - Times TBD Saturday, March 18
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