Little Rock to Face SMU in WNIT First Round

FORT COLLINS, Colo. – Little Rock will be heading to the Lone Star State to open play in the WNIT as the tournament bracket and pairings were announced Monday. The Trojans will face SMU in a First Round Game on Thursday evening.
 
Tip-off is scheduled for 7 p.m. CT at Moody Coliseum in Dallas. Ticket and broadcast information will be announced as soon as its available.
 

🚨🚨🚨 BREAKING 🚨🚨🚨

Little Rock's WNIT First Round match-up has been set. The Trojans will play at SMU on Thursday, March 16 at 7 p.m. CT.#LittleRocksTeam pic.twitter.com/JeIJAl3rfV

— Little Rock WBB (@LittleRockWBB) March 13, 2023

 
Little Rock (21-10) was the regular season champions of the Ohio Valley Conference and has won 13 of its past 14 games. The Trojans are making their sixth WNIT appearance.
 
SMU finished the season at 16-12, going 7-8 in the American Athletic Conference. The Mustangs dropped five of their last six games to end the season prior to the WNIT, including a 52-33 loss to Houston in the quarterfinals of the American Athletic Conference Tournament. SMU is making its ninth appearance all-time in the WNIT and returns to the tournament for the second consecutive season.
 
This will only be the third time that Little Rock and SMU will meet on the hardwood, with each team taking a game in the all-time series. SMU claimed a 69-60 win in Little Rock on Nov. 14, 2011, while the Trojans handed SMU a 47-43 loss in Dallas on Nov. 19, 2012.
 
The winner will advance to the second round to face the winner of the UTEP-Texas Tech game, also scheduled for Thursday. The location, date and time of that second round match-up is still yet to be determined.


 
This marks the 25^th edition of the Postseason WNIT, powered by Triple Crown Sports and first held in 1998. The tournament field is made up from automatic qualifiers from all 32 Division I conferences, as well as 32 at-large squads.
 
Round 1 schedule (all times CT):
 
Wednesday, March 15
Kent State at Syracuse, 6 p.m.
Missouri State at Nebraska, 6 p.m.
 
Thursday, March 16
Liberty at Bowling Green, 5 p.m.
Morgan State at Wake Forest, 5 p.m.
Penn at Richmond, 5 p.m.
Wofford at Florida, 5 p.m.
Belmont at Ball State, 5:30 p.m.
Colorado State at Northern Iowa, 6 p.m.
Drexel at Fordham, 6 p.m.
High Point at Clemson, 6 p.m.
Saint Joseph's at Seton Hall, 6 p.m.
Towson at Harvard, 6 p.m.
UTEP at Texas Tech, 6 p.m.
Wichita State at Kansas State, 6 p.m.
Texas State at Stephen F. Austin, 6:30 p.m.
Illinois State at Missouri, 7 p.m.
Jackson State at Memphis, 7 p.m.
Little Rock at SMU, 7 p.m.
Louisiana Tech at Arkansas, 7 p.m.
Niagara at Green Bay, 7 p.m.
Long Beach State at San Diego, 8 p.m.
Northern Arizona at New Mexico, 8 p.m.
San Francisco at Washington, 9 p.m.
 
Friday, March 17
Boston at Rhode Island, 5 p.m.
Western Kentucky at Kansas, 5 p.m.
Fairleigh Dickinson at Columbia, 6 p.m.
UAlbany at UMass, 6 p.m.
Tulane at Auburn, 7 p.m.
Texas A&M-Corpus Christi at Wyoming, 7:30 p.m.
Rice at BYU, 8 p.m.
UC Irvine at San Diego State, 8 p.m.
North Dakota State at Oregon, 9 p.m. 
 
Here's the rest of the schedule for the 2023 event:

Round 2 - March 18-21
Round 3 - March 22-24
Quarterfinals - March 25-27
Semifinals - March 28-29
Championship - Saturday, April 1 at 5:30 p.m. ET (broadcast by CBS Sports Network)
 
All games are played at individual schools; the 2023 Postseason WNIT has 35 teams that won at least 20 games this season. Five teams in the tournament hail from the Atlantic 10; there are four teams each from the American, Atlantic Coast, Conference USA, Missouri Valley, Mountain West and Southeastern conferences. Three teams will make their run from the Big 12, Ivy, Mid-American and West Coast; two teams made the cut from the Big West and Pac 12.
 
In the 2022 Postseason WNIT championship game, South Dakota State topped Seton Hall, 82-50. Other recent title winners include Rice (2021), Arizona (2019), Indiana (2018) and Michigan in 2017, a game against Georgia Tech that went into triple overtime.
 
For the latest information on Little Rock Basketball, make sure to check out LRTrojans.com. You can also find the team on social media at @LittleRockWBB on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.
 
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#LittleRocksTeam