USF Women’s Basketball Gets 11 Seed in NCAA’s Tallahassee Regional: Dates, Times, And Coach Fernandez Quotes

#11 USF women’s basketball will face #6 Missouri on Friday at 5 p.m. in Tallahasse Regional of the NCAA Tournament at the Donald L. Tucker Civic Center. The winner will face the victor of #3 Florida State and #14 Western Illinois on Sunday for a place in the Stockton (CA) Regional Semifinal next weekend.

To say the Bulls were surprised by their seed is an understatement. Despite an RPI of 30 and a 24-8 record, the Bulls end up as one of the last at-large teams in the field. By comparison, American Conference foe Temple received a #7 seed despite having the same non-UConn record as USF, but lost to the Bulls two out of three times during the season.

Head coach Jose Fernandez was bewildered at the lack of respect for his team.

“It was very surprising getting that type of seed. I don’t know what they discussed in that room. But it looks... these selections look really ‘regionalized-based’. That’s not how this tournament should go. But we’re really excited. It’s an opportunity for our fans to come see us in Tallahassee, and we’re playing a very, very good Missouri team to get to that second game.”

“No idea. But, again, there’s nothing that this committee hasn’t done... every year’s different. We’ve been on the wrong side of the bubble a bunch of times. If we’re an 11 seed that means we were one of the last teams in this tournament. So I find that very hard to believe.”

“I look at it... the University of Connecticut is the number one seed in the country. I mean Albany is the 16 seed? They’re the worst team in the tournament as a conference winner? No they’re not. I’m sure we’ll find out.

Maybe we have enough bad weather and we don’t have enough planes to get teams around.”

Folks wanting to make the trip to Tallahassee should keep an eye on social media as well as GoUSFBulls.com for potential bus packages this weekend.