UCF women get first at-large bid
Knights earn No. 12 seed, to play Arizona State in NCAA tourney.
The UCF women’s basketball team has capped most of its program-best 26 wins this season with a postgame dance in the locker room. Now, the Knights are headed to the Big Dance.
UCF earned its first at-large bid as the NCAA Tournament bracket was unveiled Monday. The Knights, making their fifth tournament appearance overall, are the No. 12 seed in the Portland Region. They will face the fifth-seeded Arizona State Sun Devils on Friday at 7 p.m. in Coral Gables.
“I’m so elated that [our players], especially our seniors, get to continue to play and get that opportunity to be in the NCAA Tournament,” coach Katie Abrahamson Henderson said.
One of those seniors is Orlando native Nyala Shuler, a guard who is looking forward to the Knights having a bit of a homecourt advantage despite being the lower seed in Friday’s matchup.
“My family is already calling me, telling me how they’re booking their hotel rooms,” Shuler said. “We’re going to be playing on the big stage and we’re going to have a nice fan base. That’s going to be really helpful for us.”
The team held a selection show watch party Monday night to see where they would be slotted in the tournament, and when they saw their name pop up on the ESPN broadcast, the reaction inside Mellow Mushroom was rather subdued. There was no explosion of joy. Even though the Knights had gained entry into their first NCAA Tournament since 2011, their reaction was one of a team that already knew it would be included.
That’s because they did already know, hours before the selection show was supposed to air at 7 p.m. Every team knew.