CAMBRIDGE, Mass.-- The Hartford Hawks women's basketball team received a No. 10 seed in the 2008 NCAA Championship as announced on the live selection special on ESPN Monday night. The Hawks (27-5) will play a No. 7 seed Syracuse of the Big East this weekend in Baton Rouge, La. within the Oklahoma City Regional.
The game will be played Saturday, March 22 at approximately 1 p.m., or 30 minutes following the No. 2 Texas A&M and No. #15 Texas San-Antonio match-up beginning at 11 a.m., and will be televised live nationally on ESPN2.
Hartford earned the bid by winning the 2008 America East Championship on Sunday with a 61-45 win over Boston University. The title and automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament is Hartford's third in the last four years, and fourth overall. It is the highest seed in program history, and the highest seed by an America East representative since Maine captured a ten seed in 1999.
The conference title win tied Hartford's program record for wins in a season which the 2006 team accomplished. The same team that set that record also became just the second America East team to earn a victory in the NCAA Tournament, defeating sixth-seeded Temple as an 11 seed.
Hartford is 1-3 (.250) in the NCAA Tournament for the best winning percentage of any America East women's basketball team in the tournament.
Syracuse (22-8) fell to USF in the opening round of Big East Tournament play. The Orangewomen make their first tournament appearance since the 2001-02 season.