McNeese women’s basketball has secured an automatic spot in the Women’s Basketball Invitation Tournament (WBIT), according to a March 14 announcement. The team will learn its first-round opponent during the selection show scheduled for 8 p.m. Central Time on Sunday, March 15, which will air on ESPN+.
The WBIT is an annual tournament owned and funded by the National Collegiate Athletic Association and has been held since 2024. This marks McNeese’s first appearance in the event. The single-elimination tournament features 32 teams and begins on March 19, with semifinals and finals set for March 30 and April 1 at Charles Koch Arena in Wichita, Kansas. Preliminary rounds—including the first, second, and quarterfinal games—will be played at campus sites and broadcast on ESPN+.
The top sixteen seeds in the tournament are determined by a selection committee made up of five former Division I women’s basketball coaches and three current or former Division I athletic administrators. These top seeds will host their first-round games if they submit a bid and meet hosting requirements.
Automatic qualifiers for the WBIT include Division I regular-season champions who do not receive invitations to the NCAA Division I Basketball Championship. Additionally, the first four teams left out of that championship receive automatic bids as well and are seeded among the top four in the WBIT field.
Past champions of the WBIT include Illinois in 2024 and Minnesota in 2025. The upcoming schedule includes rounds at campus sites before moving to Wichita for the final games.
