TOLEDO, Ohio — Despite an early exit from the Mid-American Conference tournament, the Toledo women's basketball season is not over.
The Rockets (26-5) will host Cleveland State (29-5) at Savage Arena on Thursday in the first round of the inaugural Women's Basketball Invitation Tournament. Toledo enters the tournament as a No. 2 seed.
The WBIT is an NCAA-sponsored tournament and jumps ahead of the Women's National Invitation Tournament in pecking order.
The first, second and quarterfinal games are set to be held at campus sites before moving to Hinkle Fieldhouse on the campus of Butler University in Indianapolis for the semifinals and championship game.
UT is coming off a regular season MAC championship, but a loss in the conference tournament semifinals to Buffalo in overtime.
Now the Rockets turn the page as they look to chase a WBIT championship in the first year of the tournament.
"There's a lot of teams that would still like to be playing right now and we are also extremely grateful to have this opportunity," Toledo head coach Tricia Cullop said. "For years, the NCAA has paid for men to play in the NIT and never paid for the WNIT for women. This is the first time in history that the NCAA is paying for both men and women to play in the postseason. We want to embrace that opportunity."
"Glad to still be playing basketball. It's a new tournament so we're excited to at least be in something, still playing basketball with one another," Toledo guard Sophia Wiard said. "At the end of the day, it's March and good things can still happen. We've played a lot of games this year but to say we're still playing and still get to play with one another, I think that's kind of why we have that smile on our face still is just because we're still playing basketball with one another."
Toledo's game against Cleveland State will begin at 7 p.m. on Thursday against Cleveland State. It can be streamed on ESPN+.
