UTSA will play on the road against the Gonzaga Bulldogs Thursday night in the first round of the Women’s Basketball Invitation Tournament.
The NCAA-sponsored tournament is in its second season of existence. Officials announced its 32-team field Sunday night and paired UTSA (26-4) against Gonzaga (22-10) as one of 16 first-round matchups.
The NCAA field of 68 was announced earlier Sunday night. As expected, UTSA did not get an invitation to play in the most prestigious of the tournaments in women’s college basketball. The WBIT is next, followed by the Women’s National Invitation Tournament, or WNIT. UTSA reached the second round of the WNIT last season.
This year, the Roadrunners went 26-3 in the regular season and 17-1 to win the American Athletic Conference, only to fall to the Rice Owls, 62-58, in the first round of the conference tournament.
UTSA likely needed to sweep three games at the AAC tournament to earn a bid into the NCAA field.
Going into its second year, the WBIT is owned and funded by the NCAA, and the first four teams out of the NCAA DI women’s basketball tournament — as determined by the DI women’s basketball selection committee — receive an automatic bid into the WBIT and also receive the first four seeds.
Regular-season champions of DI conferences not otherwise selected for the NCAA DI women’s basketball tournament also automatically qualify (if eligible and not reclassifying institutions). The remaining field is made up of at-large teams chosen by the WBIT selection committee.
In the WBIT, UTSA will need to win five games to win the title. All first-round games are Thursday night. The second round is a week from today, on March 23, followed by the third round on March 27.
If a team wins three games, it would move on to Indianapolis for the semifinals on March 31. The tournament finals are set for April 2. Semifinals and finals will be played at historic Hinkle Fieldhouse on the Butler University campus.
THE 2025 WBIT BRACKET ⭐🤩⭐#ElevateTheGame pic.twitter.com/LCJlcI0NuS
— Women’s Basketball Invitation Tournament (@wbitwbb) March 17, 2025