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Washington State women look to continue historic march in WNIT

These have been happy times for Pac-12 Conference women’s basketball coaches, including Stanford’s Tara VanDerveer, left, and Washington State’s June Daugherty. (Elaine Thompson / Associated Press)
From staff and wire reports

After making the women’s basketball postseason for just the fourth time in the modern NCAA era, Washington State has proven to be a tough out.

The Cougars have – quite unexpectedly – won three in a row to advance to the quarterfinals of the Women’s National Invitational Tournament against Iowa at noon Sunday at the Carver-Hawkeye Arena in Iowa City, Iowa.

Not to beleaguer the point, but the Cougars finished the regular season with a 11-18 overall record, including a 6-12 mark in Pac-12 Conference play. They were dumped unceremoniously by No. 2 Stanford in the Pac-12 tourney by 30 points.

The Cougars earned the conference’s automatic bid into the postseason tournament solely thanks to their seventh place finish in the standings. The Pac-12 earned a record seven bids to the NCAA Tournament – but did not take its seventh-place team.

The wins in the first three WNIT rounds marked WSU’s first postseason victories. Three times prior the Cougs played in the opening round of the NCAA (1991) and the WNIT (2014, 2015) only to fall short.

Washington State took care of UC Davis 71-62 in the third round. The Cougs’ trio of guards led the way to victory, with sophomore Alexys Swedlund pacing the attack with her fifth 20-point game of the season.

Cougars captains Pinelopi Pavlopoulou went for 16 points and Caila Hailey chipped in 13.

WSU’s opponent in the quarters, the Big Ten’s Iowa (20-13), has advanced without leaving its own arena. Most recently, the Hawkeyes dispatched the Pac-12’s Colorado 80-61 to earn their spot in the Elite Eight of the WNIT. Iowa has gone 17-3 in Iowa City this season.

The Hawkeyes are led by Megan Gustafson and Ally Distterhoff.

Gustafson averages 18.5 points on 64.8 percent shooting while grabbing 9.9 rebounds and Distterhoff averages 16.5 points, much of that from the outside.