The College of Charleston women’s basketball program will participate in its first ever national postseason tournament at the Division I level as the Cougars have been selected to play in the inaugural Women’s Basketball Invitational. They will travel to Morehead, Kentucky to face Morehead State (22-10, 14-4 OVC) in a first round game at 6 p.m. on March 17.
CofC is the No. 2 seed in the eight-team East Region while the Eagles are the No. 7 seed. Fellow Southern Conference member Appalachian State earned the East’s No. 1 seed and will travel to Charleston Southern for a first round contest.
Prior to making the transition to Division I in the 1991-92 season, the College of Charleston was a force at the NAIA level, winning 20 or more games in nine of 10 seasons from 1979-89. The Cougars last qualified for a national postseason tournament during the 1980-81 season as they went 25-9 and reached the Nationals of the NAIA Tournament, winning three games before eventually falling to William Penn by a 64-51 score.
The only other such postseason appearance in program history occurred in 1979-80 when CofC went 32-8 and won three games at Nationals before eventually falling to Dayton. Each of those appearances was under the guidance of current College of Charleston head coach Nancy Wilson during her first tenure at the helm of the Cougars.
This season, the Cougars are currently 19-11 overall and posted a 13-7 record in league play before dropping a narrow 57-56 loss to Georgia Southern in the quarterfinals of the Southern Conference Tournament. They have posted several key wins this season, including the program’s first victories over Big Ten and Atlantic Coast Conference schools with a 54-50 victory at Northwestern and a 68-55 defeat of Clemson as well as a 62-45 win over Texas San Antonio.
Morehead State enters the tournament with an impressive 22-10 overall record but fell to a 14-17 Austin Peay club in the Ohio Valley Conference semifinals. The Eagles are led by Chynna Bozeman with an average of 19.6 points per game to go along with 4.8 rebounds while Tiffany Hamilton averages 11.2 points and 4.4 rebounds. Courtney Lumpkin is third in scoring at 10.9 and leads the team with 144 assists in 32 games for a 4.5 average.
The Women’s Basketball Invitational is a 16-team, single elimination tournament that was developed to offer postseason eligible teams a second option should they not qualify for the NCAA Tournament. All games will be played at campus sites over a two-week period with the championship game being tentatively scheduled for March 28 or 29 at the site of the team with the higher RPI.
The winner of the College of Charleston/Morehead State match-up will face the winner of the No. 3 Louisville/No. 6 Bradley game on either March 20 or 21.
