PISCATAWAY, N.J. (AP) - Rutgers women’s basketball coach C. Vivian Stringer wasn’t exactly thrilled with her team’s NCAA tournament draw.
Rutgers received a No. 7 seed and will face 10th-seeded Louisiana Tech in a Dallas regional game in Shreveport, La., on Sunday night.
Should they win, the Scarlet Knights (19-12) would likely have a rematch against No. 2 Texas A&M on March 22.
“Louisiana Tech is playing, what, two hours down the road (from its campus)? That’s just the way of the world sometimes,” Stringer said. “And then, who do we have next?”
Most likely, that would be Texas A&M, which defeated Rutgers 79-50 at Madison Square Garden on Dec. 19.
The Aggies face No. 15 seed McNeese State prior to the Rutgers-Louisiana Tech game.
“You would think they would want us to play someone that hasn’t seen us play before,” Stringer said. “It is what it is.”
Louisiana Tech (24-7), which is making its 27th NCAA tournament appearance, won the WAC regular-season title, but dropped a 78-76 heartbreaker to Fresno State in the conference championship game on Saturday.
The Lady Techsters are led by second-year coach Theresa Weatherspoon, whom Stringer knows from Weatherspoon’s days starring for the WNBA’s New York Liberty.
“It doesn’t take much to motivate me. I just need to see a different color uniform,” Stringer said. “I hope the kids use this (as motivation). But I think they’re just happy to be playing still.”
The Scarlet Knights enter the NCAA tournament on a roll, having won seven of their past 10 games. Their late-season resurgence helped secure a fourth-place finish in the Big East Conference, which sent a record nine teams to the NCAAs.
“This is what you work all season for,” Rutgers guard Khadijah Rushdan said. “All the injuries and all the pain, (the NCAA tournament) is what it’s all about.”
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