The only program to appear in every NCAA Tournament, the University of Tennessee women’s basketball team received confirmation that it had earned its 41st consecutive postseason bid Sunday night when the bracket was revealed on ESPN.
UT also learned it will serve as a host for the NCAA First and Second Rounds for the second year in a row. This will mark the 19th occasion the Lady Vols have hosted the NCAA First and Second Rounds since that format was instituted in 1994. Tickets are available at AllVols.com.
The Lady Vols (23-11) is seeded No. 4 in the Seattle 3 Region. UT will face No. 13 seed Saint Louis University (17-17) in the first round on Saturday in Thompson-Boling Arena. Tip time and TV info. will be announced later. This will mark the second meeting between these programs, with UT defeating the Billikens, 75-40, on Dec. 2, 2002, in the San Juan Shootout in Puerto Rico.
No. 5 seed Iowa State (22-9) will meet No. 12 seed Toledo (28-4) in the other first-round contest in Knoxville on Saturday. The winners of the first-round matchups will face off on Monday. Time and TV info. for that contest will be announced later as well.
The Lady Vols, who are 128-32 all-time in NCAA play, is the only school to appear in all 41 tournaments, winning eight national championships. They also have recorded the most games played (160) and second most victories (128) in tournament history.
The Tennessee basketball program has earned a fifth consecutive NCAA Tournament berth and gathered as a team on Selection Sunday to learn its draw.
The Volunteers (23-10) earned a No. 4 seed for the fourth time in program history (also in 1981, 1999 and 2000) and will travel to Orlando, Florida.
Tennessee’s first-round opponent in East Region action is 13th-seed Louisiana on Thursday. Tipoff is set for 9:40 p.m. ET on CBS. Two days later, the winner of that game will then face the winner of the first-round matchup between five-seed Duke and 12-seed Oral Roberts.
Louisiana (26-7), led by head coach Bob Marlin, won the Sun Belt Conference championship this season.
The Vols are 9-1 all-time against Louisiana (formerly Louisiana-Lafayette), with the most recent meeting coming in Knoxville in 2018—an 87-65 UT victory.
