The University of Maine women’s basketball team’s goal is to win the America East Tournament and earn its first NCAA Tournament berth since the 2018-19 season.
The league regular season champs will have the opportunity to do so when they entertain defending champion and third seed Vermont at the Memorial Gym at 5 p.m. on Friday.
The Black Bears have already clinched a spot in a tournament: the inaugural Women’s Basketball Invitation Tournament (WBIT).
The 32-team WBIT is sponsored by the NCAA.
The long-established Women’s National Invitation Tournament is also still going but is independent from the NCAA and was founded by Triple Crown Sports in 1994.
Both tournaments are for teams that didn’t qualify for the NCAA Tournament.
The WBIT appears to be a step up from the WNIT because the field includes the first four teams left out of the NCAA Tournament by the Division I Women’s Basketball Committee as well as many of the conference regular season champions like UMaine.
Those first four teams left out of the NCAA tourney will be the top four seeds for the WBIT. There will also be at-large berths as chosen by an eight-member WBIT Selection Committee.
There are 35 NCAA Division I women’s basketball conferences.
The first three rounds, including the quarterfinals, will be held at the campus sites of the higher seeded teams.
First-round games will be on March 21, second round contests will be on March 24 and the quarterfinals are scheduled for March 28.
The WBIT semifinals and championship game will be held at the Hinkle Fieldhouse on the Butler University campus in Indianapolis on April 1 and 3.
All the WBIT Tournament games will be broadcast on the ESPN platforms.
The NCAA will pay for travel expenses and a per diem for a travel party up to 25 members. Teams within 400 miles of their opponents’ court will drive to the site.
There will be 68 teams in the NCAA Tournament and 48 in the WNIT.
That means 148 of the 349 NCAA Division I women’s basketball teams will be involved in post-season play.
The WNIT was established as a preseason tournament in 1994 before switching over to a postseason affair in 1998.
