The Florida women’s basketball team will finish its season exactly where it began: in the National Invitation Tournament.
After being left out of the NCAA Tournament discussion, Florida (18-14) will host Maryland Baltimore County (20-11) on Friday in the O’Connell Center in the first round of the Women’s NIT.
Only four Southeastern Conference teams (Tennessee, Kentucky, Vanderbilt and Georgia) were selected to participate in the Big Dance and, for the second straight year, the Gators were left at home.
UF has been to three NITs and only one NCAA Tournament in coach Amanda Butler’s four years as head coach.
Following the loss to Tennessee in the SEC Tournament, Butler said she felt her team had done enough to be considered for the field of 64.
The Gators won four of their last five games to close out the season. Florida notched quality wins over Tournament teams Georgia, Vanderbilt and Central Florida. UF lost by one point to DePaul and by two points to Florida State, both No. 3 seeds in the Tournament.
UF, ranked No. 50 in RPI according to realtimerpi.com, finished eighth in the SEC with an 8-10 record and played the 11th-toughest schedule in the nation.
But eight losses in 10 games late in the SEC schedule, as well as losses to Brown and Hampton, likely did in the Gators’ chances.
South Carolina received the SEC’s automatic bid for the NIT and Florida was one of four at-large teams selected from the conference. The SEC had just two teams in the NIT last season.
UMBC won the regular-season American East championship and earned an automatic bid to WNIT. The ticket prices and tip-off time have yet to be determined.
