EVANSVILLE, Ind. – Following the announcement of the full 48-team field for the 2024 Women’s NIT (WNIT) Postseason Tournament on Sunday night, Monday’s official bracket release slotted University of Southern Indiana Women’s Basketball to host the University of Illinois at Chicago Thursday night (March 21) at 7 p.m. CT at Screaming Eagles Arena.
Season-ticket holders can call the USI Ticket Office at 812-465-1189. starting Tuesday at 8 a.m. to reserve seats. General public sales will open at Noon Tuesday, but season-ticket seats will still be held for reservation until Wednesday at Noon. Tickets are $10 with the lower bowl as reserved seats and upper bowl general admission. USI students receive free admission.
A potential second-round matchup for Southern Indiana would be against the University of Wisconsin at a location and time to be determined. Wisconsin received a first-round bye in the WNIT bracket.
The 2024 WNIT is the 26th edition of the Postseason WNIT, powered by Triple Crown Sports and first held in 1998. The tournament field is made up of 11 automatic qualifiers and 37 at-large programs, flexing a mix of Power 4 conferences as well as ascending mid-major programs. All games are played at individual schools; the 2024 Postseason WNIT has 24 teams that won at least 20 games this season.
The roster of teams reflects the depth and competitive excellence found throughout women’s college basketball and draws from Power 5 notables and ascending mid-major conferences. Games are played at campus locations, helping create unique and electric environments for the women’s game that has led to remarkable record-breaking crowds over the years – more than 14,600 fans attended the 2019 championship game featuring Arizona and Northwestern in Tucson, AZ, and last year’s title game in Lawrence, KS between Kansas and Columbia drew a crowd of 11,701.
The tournament schedule is as follows:
Round 1 – March 20-22, 2024Round 2 – March 23-26, 2024Round 3 – March 27-29, 2024Quarterfinals – March 30-April 1, 2024Semifinals – April 2-3, 2024
The 2024 Postseason WNIT will again have its championship game broadcast on CBS Sports Network, with tipoff set for Saturday, April 6, at 3 p.m. ET.
Fans can follow the 2024 Postseason WNIT through X/Twitter (@WomensNIT), Facebook (womensNIT), and the hashtag #WNIT.
In only their second year at the NCAA Division I level, the Screaming Eagles are making their first-ever appearance in the WNIT. Due to NCAA reclassification policies, USI is not eligible for the NCAA Tournament despite winning the Ohio Valley Conference Championship Tournament. The WNIT is a postseason tournament not sanctioned by the NCAA.
Southern Indiana (24-6) earned an automatic bid to the WNIT after capturing the 2023-24 Ohio Valley Conference regular season championship. USI added to a strong regular season run by winning the 2024 OVC Championship Tournament title a little over a week ago. Both titles were the first-ever OVC team championships in USI Athletics history.
USI won the regular season championship by six games before winning back-to-back games against Eastern Illinois University and the University of Tennessee at Martin in last week’s OVC Championship Tournament. USI defeated the Panthers by a score of 69-54 in the semifinals and by a score of 81-53 over UT Martin in the championship game.
USI’s 28-point margin of victory in Saturday’s championship game also ranked among the largest margins of victory in the OVC Women’s Basketball Tournament championship game history, just short of the championship game’s top-two point differentials of 32 and 30 points.
Compared to recent history, Saturday’s championship win put Southern Indiana with the likes of the University of North Dakota’s 2011-12 team (Great West Conference) and California Baptist University’s 2020-21 team (Western Athletic Conference) to win a regular season and conference tournament championship in the same season during a transition period.
Plus, Southern Indiana is currently enjoying a 10-game winning streak for the second time this season, matching a team best since the 2017-18 season. The 2017-18 season was also the last time USI had won at least 24 games overall as the Screaming Eagles have done so far this season.
