WOMEN’S BASKETBALL: Lamar to host WNIT game vs. South Alabama
Published 11:04 pm Monday, March 18, 2019
Lamar will host a Women’s National Invitation Tournament game for the first time in program history.
The Southland Conference regular-season champion Cardinals (24-6) will welcome Sun Belt tournament runner-up South Alabama for a Friday tipoff inside the Montagne Center in Beaumont. Tipoff time is yet to be announced.
South Alabama tied Texas State for sixth in the Sun Belt and lost 57-56 to Little Rock in Saturday’s Sun Belt final in New Orleans.
The winner will take on either Wyoming or Northern Colorado.
Lamar is competing in a national tournament for the third straight year and in the WNIT for a second straight year. Lamar lost the 2018 first-round game to TCU 80-68 in Fort Worth and lost a 73-72 decision to Rice in the first round of the 2017 Women’s Basketball Invitational. All time, the Cards are 0-3 in the WNIT, also having lost at Southern Mississippi in 2014 and at Arkansas in 2011.
This will be the third postseason game Lamar has played in Beaumont all-time. Lamar lost to South Dakota in the second round of the 2013 WBI after beating Presbyterian College in Port Arthur the game before. Lamar also defeated LSU in the second round of the 1991 NCAA tournament (but the Cards’ wins from that tournament were vacated because of NCAA sanctions).
— I.C. Murrell