Wolfpack Women Earn A 5-Seed, Will Play Tulsa

The women's NCAA tournament field was announced this evening, and the Wolfpack landed the 5-seed in the San Antonio region. They're off to Chicago to play Tulsa, and hopefully they can erase the painful memories from the 2005 tournament. NC State's strong standing in the RPI helped it land a nice seed despite a modest record. From GoPack.com:

Yow believes that is what got her team, which finished fifth in the final ACC standings, a higher seed in the NCAA Tournament than Florida State, which finished fourth in the final ACC standings.

"Absolutely, it is the strength of schedule that got us a No. 5 seeding," Yow said. "I am glad to see that the committee stayed true to what they said the criteria would be. We based our schedule on that from Day 1. In the past few years, they have been very committed to sticking to that.

"We felt that that would be the case this year, which is why we put together a demanding schedule."

NC State won four games out-of-conference against the RPI top 50: Vandy, BYU, Liberty and George Washington. The OOC slate also included Utah (18th in RPI, 5-seed in NCAAs) and Rutgers (9th in RPI, 3-seed in NCAAs).

Congrats and good luck to the women.

And on an unrelated note, I give you... Allan Ray getting his eye poked out. I don't know what it is, I can't stop watching.