The newly crowned America East champion University of Maine women’s basketball team earned the 15 seed and will face Ohio State in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.
They’ll play second seed Ohio State in Columbus, Ohio. The time and date have not yet been announced.
The 24-9 Black Bears, winners of 12 of their last 13 games, beat defending champ Vermont 64-48 in Friday’s America East title game before an energized sell-out crowd at the Memorial Gym in Orono.
It was UMaine’s first conference tournament title since the Black Bears won back-to-back championships in 2017-18 and 2018-19.
UMaine had lost America East championship games at the Memorial Gym to Stony Brook in 2020-21 and Albany in 2021-22.
Albany ousted the Black Bears in the semifinals a year ago.
UMaine reached the league title game in 2019-20 but the COVID-19 pandemic shut down the season the week before UMaine was scheduled to play host Stony Brook in the final.
UMaine wound up as a 14th seed in the NCAA Tourment in the 2018-19 season and lost to third seed North Carolina State 63-51 in the first round in Raleigh, North Carolina.
North Carolina State was ranked 10th in the country at the time.
The previous season, UMaine was a 15th seed and lost to second seed Texas 83-54 in Austin, Texas in its first round game.
