Up Next for Alabama Women: the National Tournament
After finishing the 2023-2024 regular season undefeated in college play at 23-0, the University of Alabama women’s wheelchair basketball team now turns its attention to the NWBA Women’s Intercollegiate National Tournament, which is taking place on March 8 and 9 at home at Stran-Hardin Arena.
The Crimson Tide will not be playing on the first round of the
tournament, having received a first-round bye after finishing undefeated in
division play and earning the tournament’s top seed.
See the team's complete season results here.
“I think it’s just a testament to our group,” coach Ryan
Hynes said of the team’s undefeated regular season in the intercollegiate
division. “We had some really tough battles, especially with (the University
of) Texas-Arlington. But, at the end of the day, it’s kind of a fresh season
now.”
Seven of Alabama’s 23 college wins came against
Texas-Arlington. Three of those games accounted for Alabama’s three narrowest
margins of victory: a four-point win on Jan. 27, a ten-point win on Feb. 10,
and a 14-point win on Jan. 20. The other margins of victory, 18 points, 19
points, 22 points, and 24 points, were among the Crimson Tide’s narrowest of
the season.
Texas-Arlington is the No. 2 seed, setting up a potential
rematch of last year’s championship game which Alabama won 88-41.
To get to the championship game, Alabama will play the winner
of the quarterfinal game between No. 5 seed University of Wisconsin at
Whitewater and No. 4 seed University of Arizona in the semifinal.
Last year’s championship was the Crimson Tide’s fourth
consecutive national championship – there was no tournament played in 2020 due
to COVID.
While acknowledging that it is the sort of thing that people
on the outside like media and fans like to talk about, Hynes downplayed the
significance of Alabama coming into the tournament as the four-time defending national
champion, saying, “it’s a new group and definitely new groups of teams that
were going against, so, for us, I think we’re just focused on the here and now
and what we can do to get a championship this year.”
The other semifinal will be between No. 2 seed Texas-Arlington, who got the other first round bye, and the winner of the quarterfinal between No. 6 seed City University of New York and No. 3 seed University of Illinois.
See also: Alabama Wheelchair Basketball Teams Combine to Win Five of Six Games at Texas-Arlington Tournament
Alabama has already beaten each of those teams this season,
having beaten Arizona five times and Illinois four times.
Graduate student Joy Haizelden acknowledged the role that
familiarity will play, saying, “we know what the other teams are going to do especially
defensively, how they’re going to play us. But they also know what we’re going
to do as well. So it’s kind of like this cat-and-mouse game of who’s going to
be able to perform on that day because we do end up knowing each other so well.”
Hynes said a big focus of preparation in the lead up to the
tournament is game-planning and practicing specifically for possible matchups.
Alabama has extensive tournament experience with four
seniors and two graduate students on the roster, something Haizelden sees as an
asset.
“It helps especially in those tough moments, those close
games. That experience to not freak out, to keep composed, to know that we can
play our game when it matters,” she said.
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