Full Bracket
LITTLE ROCK – The Little Rock women's basketball team will be participating in the Postseason WNIT for the fifth time in program history and the second consecutive season, the WNIT announced on Monday night.
Â
Little Rock will face Southern Miss in a first-round matchup on Wednesday evening with the game time still to be determined. A victory in that game would pit the Trojans against the winner of Thursday's game between Alabama and Mercer.
Â
The Trojans won the Sun Belt regular-season championship with a conference record of 17-1 and went 24-8 overall during the year. Little Rock has now won at least 20 games in 10 of the last 11 seasons and made the national postseason nine of the last 10 years with five WNIT appearances and four NCAA Tournament appearances.
Â
Little Rock was upset in the Sun Belt Tournament semifinals by No. 5 Louisiana, but the Trojans still earned an automatic bid to the WNIT because of its regular-season Sun Belt title. Little Rock senior guard
Sharde' Collins was named to the Sun Belt All-Tournament team earlier on Monday.
Â
Also earlier on Monday, Little Rock continued to receive votes in the nation AP Poll and Coaches Poll, earning three points and two points, respectively.
Â
Little Rock and Southern Miss have faced off 11 times in their history, with the Trojans claiming victories in seven of those games. The teams also competed in the Postseason WNIT once before with the Golden Eagles winning 67-57 in Hattiesburg in 2008. That game was the first national postseason game in Trojan history.
Â
The Trojans are 0-4 lifetime in the Postseason WNIT.
Â
This season, the Golden Eagles posted an impressive 23-10 record and reached the Conference USA Tournament Championship Game where they lost to Western Kentucky. Southern Miss went 13-5 in conference play to finish third and had wins over Sun Belt Conference schools Louisiana and South Alabama during non-conference play. Southern Miss has an RPI of 102 while Little Rock has an RPI of 48.
