NCAA'S reveal announces State as a No. 1 seed
Mississippi State was announced as a No. 1 seed in this year's NCAA Women's Basketball Tournament. The selection committee revealed its top 16 teams with State holding the top seed in the Albany region.
MSU (22-1, 10-0 SEC), which is ranked fifth in the latest Associated Press Top 25 poll released earlier Monday, found itself at No. 4 in the committee's mind behind Baylor (21-1), Louisville (23-1) and Oregon (23-1). Uconn, defending champion Notre Dame, Stanford and North Carolina State are currently No. 2 seeds.
The Bulldogs are fresh off an impressive victory over Tennessee, defeating the Lady Vols, 91-63. State boasts the fifth-longest active conference winning streak in the nation with 26 consecutive SEC victories. That mark is tied for sixth in SEC history.
MSU is No. 6 in the latest RPI with wins a 4-1 mark against top-50 teams.
The Bulldogs are tied with Uconn for the most wins in the country (93) since the start of the 2015-16 season. The two programs last met in the 2017 Final Four when MSU snapped the Huskies 111-game win streak with a 66-64 victory in overtime.
The first and second rounds of the 2019 NCAA Division I Women's Basketball Championship will be played March 2225 on the home courts of the top 16 seeds. Regional action will take place March 29-April 1, with Albany, New York (Times Union Center) and Portland, Oregon (Moda Center) hosting on March 29 and 31, while Greensboro, North Carolina (Greensboro Coliseum) and Chicago, Illinois (Wintrust Arena) will host regional games on March 30 and April 1.
The 2019 Women's Final Four will be held April 5 at Amalie Arena in Tampa, Florida, with the National Championship game to follow on April 7.
The second and final top-16 reveal by the committee will take place on Monday, March 4 at halftime of the Uconn and South Florida game that tips at 6 p.m. that night and will be broadcast on ESPN2. The early reveals will have no bearing on the 64team field for the 2019 championship that will be announced on Selection Monday, March 18 on ESPN at 6 p.m.
MSU'S Mccowan, Howard make Naismith POY midseason teams
Teaira Mccowan and Anriel Howard made Mississippi State one of just five teams in the country with multiple players selected to the Citizen Naismith Player of the Year Trophy midseason team.
Mccowan and Howard have now both been selected to the watchlists for the Naismith, Wooden and Wade trophies this year.
Mccowan leads MSU in scoring and rebounding, averaging 17.2 points per game and 13.7 rebounds per game. She is one of two players in the Southeastern Conference to be among the top 10 in the league in both categories. She is shooting at a 66.2 percent clip from the field, which leads the conference and is sixth nationally.
Defensively, the senior center averages 2.7 blocks per game, leading the league and ranking 10th in the country. She has swatted 61 shots so far this season, which already ranks eighth in MSU history. Last year, she finished with 81 to rank fifth all-time.
Howard is second on the team in scoring (15.5 points per game) and rebounding (eight rebounds per game). She is fourth in the SEC in field goal percentage (52 percent) and seventh in the league in rebounding. Howard has turned in six games with 20 or more points and scored a career-high 30 at then-no. 7 Oregon.
The Bulldogs return to action on Thursday when they host Missouri at 8 p.m. on SEC Network.
(Photo by Vasha Hunt, AP file)