Last March, the women's basketball team bounced back from a NESCAC championship game loss to Amherst by making it all the way to the Elite Eight in its first-ever NCAA Tournament appearance. Fast forward to this year and the Jumbos are hoping that history repeats itself. At least.
Tufts (21-4, 7-2 NESCAC), coming off a loss to Amherst in the semifinals of the NESCAC Tournament last Saturday, secured its second-straight NCAA Tournament bid Monday afternoon. The Jumbos will play their first-round game Friday against Moravian College in Bethlehem, Penn.
Tufts was one of 20 teams awarded a Pool C (at-large) invitation to join the 63-team field. 40 teams received automatic bids for winning their conference championships, and the remaining three received Pool B bids, which are at-large invites given to teams not in Pool A conferences.
"I was glad to see our name definitively there, and just the setup of the bracket alone gets me really excited," senior co-captain Kim Moynihan said. "It drives it home that it's tournament time and makes it a lot more exciting."
Despite their early exit from the NESCAC Tournament, the Jumbos, ranked No. 15 nationally, were on firm ground heading into the NCAA selection process. They possessed the 12th most difficult schedule in the country with an opponents' winning percentage of .612. They were also ranked second in the competitive Northeast Region and had been consistently ranked in the top 25 in the country all season long.
"Coach [Carla Berube] does a really good job of making sure that our strength of schedule is always one of the best ones and hardest ones in the country," Moynihan said. "That definitely helps, not only when it comes to receiving an at-large bid, but it also helps in preparing us for the tournament."
Tufts was aided by its 7-2 record in the NESCAC, a conference that is sending three teams to the NCAA Tournament for the second straight year. Joining the Jumbos from the NESCAC are conference-champion Bowdoin as well as Amherst. Three non-conference Tufts opponents — Emmanuel, Eastern Conn. and Brandeis — also appear in the tournament field.
"The NESCAC is a really competitive conference, so it does a great job of preparing us," Moynihan said. "We play some nationally ranked teams, and I don't think we're going to see any teams that really take us by surprise."
A year ago, the Jumbos placed themselves on the national scene with an Elite Eight appearance that included a Sweet Sixteen victory over Mary Washington, the preseason No. 1. They had beaten Wheaton and Mount St. Mary in the first two rounds and ultimately lost to Messiah, which went on to lose in the championship game to Howard Payne.
Tufts had been defeated by Amherst in the NESCAC championship game and entered last season's NCAAs with added motivation. This year, the Jumbos are yet again coming off a difficult loss to the Lord Jeffs, and they are looking to enter the tournament with the same kind of determination that propelled them to success a year ago.
"Winning NESCACs was one of our team goals along with making the NCAA Tournament, and since we didn't achieve our first goal, we're really looking to do well in the tournament," freshman guard Kate Barnosky said. "I think we still have a lot to prove."
The College of New Jersey (23-4) and DeSales University (23-4) will play in the other first-round matchup at Moravian on Friday. The winner will then play either Tufts or Moravian in the second round on Saturday with a Sweet Sixteen appearance on the line. The games will be played in Bethlehem despite Tufts' superior ranking because the Cousens Gym court is not yet NCAA regulation size.
Moravian (21-6), an independent school with no conference, has yet to lose a game at home this year, having gone 14-0 on its own court and only 6-6 on the road. Junior co-captain Alyssa Bisci leads the team with 11.7 points per game, and junior guard Kate Harrison is the only other Greyhound to average double figures with 10.8. The appearance will be their seventh all-time in the tournament, including the 1991-92 season when they reached the championship game and lost to Alma College of Michigan.
Bowdoin and Amherst, meanwhile, are both playing host for the first and second rounds and are on an Elite Eight collision course in what could be a rematch of the NESCAC title game. Bowdoin opens the tournament against Castleton State (17-11), while Amherst will take on Babson (20-8) in its opener.
As for the Jumbos, their eyes remained fixed on Moravian as confidence remains high. With the brackets now set, Tufts looks to remain focused on the task at hand.
"This is the time of year that we've been working toward all season," Barnosky said. "We're really excited for it to begin."
