UConn Wins Regular-Season Title
UConn earned the inaugural American regular-season title and clinched the #1 seed in the 2014 American Women’s Basketball Championship, to be held March 7th-10th at Mohegan Sun Arena in Uncasville, Connecticut. All 10 league teams will compete for the championship title and the conference’s automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament.
The tournament field is based on regular-season league records. The highest six seeds earned byes into the quarterfinals on March 8th.
No. 1 UConn (31-0, 18-0 American) Clinched the conference regular-season title outright with a 68-48 win over Louisville on Monday. The Huskies will open tournament play at 2:00pm ET on Saturday versus the winner of No. 9 UCF and No. 8 Cincinnati.
No. 2 Louisville (28-3, 16-2 American) Opens tournament play at 6:00pm ET on Saturday versus the winner of No. 10 Houston and No. 7 Memphis. The Cardinals dropped their regular-season finale to UConn in front of a record crowd of 22,163 at the KFC Yum! Center.
No. 3 USF (18-11, 13-5 American) Defeated Rutgers, 60-51, on Monday to clinch the tournament’s third seed. The Bulls are 8-2 over their last 10 games and will open tournament play on Saturday at 8:00pm vs. #6 Temple/SMU.
No. 4 Rutgers (21-8, 12-6 American) Dropped its regular-season finale to USF, 60-51, and will face either Temple or SMU in the tournament quarterfinals at Noon eastern on Saturday. The Scarlet Knights are 2-3 over their last five games.
Temple (14-15, 8-10 American) and SMU (16-12, 7-10 American) Have clinched quarterfinal byes at the conference tournament. The two teams will enter the tournament at the No 5/6 spots with the exact seeding to be determined Tuesday afternoon after the UCF-SMU game.
No. 7 Memphis (13-17, 6-12 American) Clinched the seventh spot at the conference championship with a 53-47 win over Cincinnati on Monday. The Tigers open tournament play on Friday at 8:00pm eastern vs. #10 Houston.
No. 8 Cincinnati (12-17, 5-13 American) will face No. 9 UCF in the first round of the conference tournament on Friday at 6:00pm ET. The Bearcats dropped their final home game of the season to Memphis and are 2-3 over their last five games.
No. 9 UCF (10-18, 3-14 American) Wraps up its regular-season on Tuesday with a road game at SMU. The Knights will face off with #8 Cincinnati in the first-round of the conference tournament on Friday (6:00pm ET).
No. 10 Houston (5-24, 1-17 American) Takes on No. 7 Memphis in the first-round of the conference championship. Game time is slated for 8:00pm ET.
Package and single-session tickets are still available for the conference championship. To order tickets by phone, call Ticketmaster at 1.800.745.3000. In addition, tickets can be purchased online by logging on to the Mohegan Sun Arena website at www.mohegansun.com or the Ticketmaster website at www.ticketmaster.com.
Tickets can also be purchased at the Mohegan Sun Arena Box Office. Box office hours are 10:00am – 8:00pm daily. All ticket purchases are subject to additional convenience fees.
Fans can watch the entire tournament on the ESPN family of networks. The first round and quarterfinal games on March 7th and 8th, respectively, will be broadcast live on ESPN3. The semifinals on March 9th will be televised on ESPNU while championship game on March 10th will air on ESPN.
For more information on the American Women’s Basketball Championship and to view the tournament bracket, please visit championship central at www.theamerican.org/wbb.
Mohegan Sun Arena is ranked 3rd in the U.S. and 5th in the world by Billboard Magazine and was the 2008 and 2010 recipient of a Country Music Award for “Casino of The Year.” Venues Today also ranked Mohegan Sun Arena #3 in the Nation and #3 in the World for top stops in 2013 and also ranked the Arena in the top six of “Top Stops of The Decade” in 2012. For more information on concerts and other great events at Mohegan Sun, visit mohegansun.com. For information on this week’s schedule, call the Entertainment and Special Events hotline at 1.888.226.7711, ext. 27163.