Date Posted: 3/12/2007

JOHNSON CITY, Tenn. – The 48-team field has been set and the Lady Bucs will travel to Cullowhee, N.C. to take on Western Carolina in the first round of the Postseason Women’s National Invitation Tournament on Thursday night. The pairings were announced late Monday night, while game times will not be announced until Tuesday afternoon.

ETSU (20-11) was one of 31 teams to receive an automatic bid to the tournament after beating out Jacksonville in the head-to-head tiebreaker and finishing second in the A-Sun. This marks only the second time in school history that the Lady Bucs have made a (non-conference) postseason tournament, joining the 1994-95 club, which also went to the WNIT. Should ETSU knock off Western, the Lady Bucs will get a rematch with Virginia Tech in the second round. The Hokies defeated ETSU, 78-64, back on Dec. 18 in Blacksburg.

The Lady Catamounts finished their season 23-9, and also earned the automatic bid to the tournament by winning the Southern Conference regular season title. Like the Lady Bucs, Western Carolina was knocked off in the conference tournament championship game as they fell to Chattanooga, 84-66. The game was tied at 62 with 5:45 to play, but the Lady Mocs closed out the game on a 22-4 run to take home the title. Four of its players reached double figures this season for Western, with sophomore Lauren Powell leading the way with 12.1 points per contest.

Both teams are very familiar with each other after being SoCon rivals from 1983-2005. The Lady Bucs lead the all-time series 42-20 and have won five of the last seven meetings. Head coach Karen Kemp is 13-10 life-time against Western Carolina, while five active ETSU players have played at least two games in the series against the Lady Catamounts.

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