Kansas women’s basketball a No. 8 seed in NCAA Tournament; will face Georgia Tech

By Zac Boyer     Mar 13, 2022

Scott D. Weaver/Big 12
Kansas women's basketball guard Holly Kersgieter shoots during the Big 12 quarterfinal game against Oklahoma at Municipal Auditorium in Kansas City, Missouri, on March 11, 2022.

The Kansas women’s basketball team has returned to the NCAA Tournament after nine years.

The Jayhawks (20-9) were selected Sunday night to compete in the 68-team event and will play as the No. 8 seed in the Spokane Region.

They will face No. 9 seed Georgia Tech (21-10) on Friday at 6:30 p.m. CT in Palo Alto, California, and should they win that game, they will face the winner of the game between No. 1 seed Stanford, the defending national champion, and No. 16 seed Montana State on Sunday.

“I’m excited,” said junior point guard Zakiyah Franklin. “Obviously, this is something that hasn’t been done at this program in a while, so feelings are just pretty much of excitement right now and excited to get to work.”

Kansas had not qualified for the NCAA Tournament since 2013, when it reached the Sweet 16 but lost to Notre Dame. That was the final season of a six-year run in the event, during which it won at least one game each year.

The Jayhawks finished fifth in the Big 12 this season but lost 80-68 to No. 4 seed Oklahoma in the Big 12 quarterfinals in Kansas City, Missouri, on Friday. Their nine losses were all against teams that were selected to play in the tournament, and eight of them were against opponents who were one of the top four seeds in their region.

“Obviously, really excited for our players to be able to be in a room with them and hear their name called,” said coach Brandon Schneider, who is in his seventh season. “So many of them have dreamt about moments like this. … Those are memories that just can’t be re-created.”

Georgia Tech, which went 11-7 in the ACC to finish sixth in the conference, is making its second consecutive trip to the NCAA Tournament. It notably defeated UConn 57-44 on Dec. 9 to snap the Huskies’ 240-game winning streak against unranked opponents, and it also lost 50-48 on Jan. 2 to Louisville. Both teams were ranked No. 3 at the time of the games; Louisville earned a No. 1 seed and UConn is a No. 2 seed.

It has been expected for weeks that the Jayhawks would qualify for the NCAA Tournament, but that they were selected as a No. 8 seed was a surprise. They won two games against ranked teams all season — at then-No. 13 Texas on Jan. 12 and at then-No. 19 Oklahoma on March 5 — and will face an opponent in Georgia Tech that was ranked as high as No. 11 on Feb. 7.

Kansas’ tournament run will begin at Maples Pavilion, one of the more historic venues in college basketball, in front of the national championship banner that Stanford hung earlier this season.

Schneider called the opportunity to play on the court “special,” and his players may find that to be the case as well.

Only one of them — sixth-year senior guard Julie Brosseau, a transfer from Maine and Utah — has ever appeared in an NCAA Tournament game. She was a sophomore in 2018 when Maine, as a No. 15 seed, lost 83-54 to No. 2 seed Texas.

Making annual appearances in the NCAA Tournament is a goal for Schneider, who last week signed a four-year contract that will keep him with the university through the 2025-26 season.

Having the players convene to watch the selection show on ESPN was also something of a palate-cleanser, given they had only recently emerged from a film session that broke down the mistakes in the quarterfinal loss on Friday.

“It was important for us to be able to move on from that game and be really excited about the opportunities and celebrate the season as a whole,” Schneider said. “I don’t think you can dwell on maybe a poor performance Friday morning. We wanted to celebrate the entire season and make the most out of, again, the memory that was created for our players today.”

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