On Sunday, March 1st, Marquette women’s basketball ended the regular season with a 69-65 road win over Providence.
On Saturday, March 7th, Marquette women’s basketball ended their run in the Big East tournament after just one game, falling 57-44 to Creighton in the quarterfinals.
On Sunday, March 15th, Marquette women’s basketball had their season ended by a lack of inclusion in any of the postseason events.
The NCAA tournament bracket was announced at 7pm Central on ESPN, and the Big East is represented by two teams in the field of 68. UConn is a #1 seed and Villanova is a #10 seed. With Marquette’s postseason profile already on shaky ground when they were 10-4 in the Big East and 16-7 overall, the chances of an at-large bid to this field was officially extinguished by the Golden Eagles going 2-5 in their last seven games. That includes a pair of losses to Creighton, a team that is also not going to any postseason tournaments.
The WBIT bracket was announced by way of a selection show on ESPN+ at 8pm Central, and the Golden Eagles were nowhere to be seen. Seton Hall, the team tied with Marquette in the Big East standings at 12-8, made it in and because of circumstances elsewhere in the country, the Pirates will be hosting their opening round game even though they’re not one of the 16 seeded teams in the field of 32. St. John’s, one of the two teams that finished one game behind Marquette and Seton Hall in the Big East standings, is also in the WBIT, earning a first round game at Columbia.
I point out that St. John’s is a game behind Marquette in the league standings because there are no Big East teams participating in the WNIT. Yes, the WNIT is still a thing, even now after the NCAA has started up the WBIT as the official secondary postseason tournament. It’s a 48 team event this year, and no one from the Big East is in the field. The lack of anyone from the league is particularly interesting because of this part in the event info page on the WNIT website:
Automatic Berths – one berth from each of the nation’s 31 conferences. A team that is offered an automatic berth by the WNIT shall be the team that is:
— the highest-finishing team in the conference’s regular-season standings – and
— is not selected for the NCAA Tournament or the WBIT.
Should a conference’s automatic qualifier team decline the WNIT invitation, the spot will then be awarded to either the next highest-finishing team in the designated conference or reallocated to the At-Large berth consideration per the WNIT committee’s discretion.
The WNIT is trying to hand the Big East a spot in the field. Marquette is the highest finishing team in the conference standings that is not in the NCAA tournament or the WBIT, since they tied with Seton Hall and finished one game ahead of St. John’s. And yet, Marquette is not in the WNIT, and neither is Creighton, the team that officially finished directly behind the Golden Eagles in the conference standings since they were the #4 and #5 seeds in the Big East tournament.
Which is fine. If Marquette decided, for whatever reason, that participating in the WNIT wasn’t in the best interest of the program or the athletic department — my memory says that you have to essentially pay to host each game, but I don’t have a link for you to prove this — then I’m not going to disagree with the decision to pass on it after missing on the 32 team WBIT field.
However.
If you have an internal decision that you’re not going to participate in the WNIT no matter what, then I probably wouldn’t have Halle Vice record this video and then post it on social media on Sunday morning:
It’s on Instagram and Facebook as well, just in case the tweet just magically disappears at some point.
For posterity’s sake:
I think our mindset right now is focusing on staying together and controlling what we can control. Obviously, there’s some anticipation with Selection Sunday, as that’s something that every team works towards all season, but we’re proud of what we accomplished and what we’ve done so far this season. After the Big East tournament we really just took time to reflect and learn from that loss, but I think it’s about shifting our focus now to be prepared for whatever opportunity comes next.
What was the point of getting Halle Vice to record this video with this message if Marquette wasn’t going to take whatever opportunity presented itself to play at least one more game? What was the point of posting this video if Marquette was going to pass on the WNIT? And just for giggles, where exactly was this video recorded? It definitely wasn’t at the McGuire Center, and those doors over Vice’s shoulder definitely look too nice to be in any college campus house or apartment. I should note that Marquette was on Spring Break last week, and so the team was excused from classes by the time they lost in the conference tournament and weren’t scheduled to need to be on campus for academic reasons until Monday morning. I’ve got nothing against the players heading home for a few days while classes are out, but if this is Halle Vice recording this from Iowa, then the whole “staying together” thing rings false at face value.
And here’s the kicker out of all of this.
As I type this up on Monday morning, that video is the most recent post on all three social media platforms.
The most recent update on the official Marquette women’s basketball news/press release page on GoMarquette.com? The recap of the quarterfinal loss to Creighton.
Officially, Marquette hasn’t acknowledged/announced that the season is over. They’re leaving that for you, the discerning fan, to realize that on your own. On top of that, they’re leaving a “preparing for the next opportunity” video as their last message of the season sitting out for you, making it look like there’s something to look forward to, even though the evidence at hand tells us that Marquette had no intention of taking, to use Vice’s words, “whatever opportunity comes next.”
It’s 7:30 Central time right now on Monday morning. Let’s see how long it takes before 770 North 12th Street acknowledges any of this.
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