Last week, the Georgetown women’s basketball team announced that it would be competing in its first Preseason WNIT since 2000. On Tuesday, the tournament announced its bracket, with Georgetown playing host to Sacred Heart in the first round.
That game is scheduled for November 9, the same evening that the men’s basketball team will play Florida on an aircraft carrier off the coast of Jacksonville, Fla. Preseason WNIT games are played at campus sites, so the Hoyas will take on the Pioneers at McDonough Arena.
Last season, Sacred Heart went 25-8 and won the Northeastern Conference championship. The team earned a 13 seed in the NCAA Tournament and fell to 4th-seeded Georgia Tech, 76-50, in the first round.
For Georgetown, the game will be the first under new Head Coach Keith Brown, who replaced Terri Williams-Flournoy in May after she left for Auburn the previous month. The Hoyas went 23-9, including an 11-5 record in Big East play, in Williams-Flournoy’s final season.
The Preseason WNIT has a winners’ and a losers’ bracket; every team is guaranteed to play three games. In the second round, Georgetown will play either Delaware or Sam Houston State. With All-American Elena Delle Donne returning, the UD Blue Hens are expected to be one of the best teams in the country and would surely be a formidable opponent for the Hoyas.
Regardless of their performance in the first and second rounds, however, the Hoyas are guaranteed to play in at least one consolation game. Campus sites are used throughout the tournament, and the schedule and matchups are set after the first two rounds are complete.