March 12, 2012

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Mountain West Women's Basketball Weekly Release

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. - The Mountain West will send two women's basketball teams to national postseason tournaments. San Diego State will move on to the NCAA Tournament with the league's automatic bid, while UNLV is headed to the Women's National Invitation Tournament.

This year marks the 13th consecutive season in which the Mountain West has sent multiple teams to the postseason. It is the tenth consecutive year, and 12th overall, that the MW will have a representative in the WNIT.

NCAA Tournament
San Diego State (25-6) earned the Mountain West automatic bid to the 2012 NCAA Women's Basketball Championship Tournament with a 57-43 win over New Mexico on Saturday, March 10 to win the championship game. It will be the third time San Diego State has represented the league in the NCAA postseason event and second time as the MW's automatic qualifier. The Aztecs, the No. 12 seed in the Kingston, R.I., Region, will face No. 5 seed LSU (22-10) in the first round at the Pete Maravich Assembly Center in Baton Rouge, La. San Diego State is making its ninth appearance in the NCAA Tournament and its third in the last four seasons. The Aztecs are 6-8 overall in the NCAA Tournament and reached the Sweet 16 in 2010.

First round games will be played Sunday, March 18 with No. 4 seed Penn State (24-6) and No. 13 seed UTEP (29-3) squaring off at 3 p.m. MT. San Diego State will then face LSU at 5:30 p.m. MT. Both first round games will be televised on ESPN2. Tuesday's second round matchup between the winners of Sunday's games will be played at 7:30 p.m. MT and will be televised on ESPN or ESPN2.

Women's National Invitational Tournament
UNLV (22-9), the regular season runner-up in the MW this season, earned an automatic bid to the 2012 Women's NIT. The Lady Rebels are making their sixth appearance in the WNIT as a Mountain West member and ninth overall. It is the first appearance in any national postseason event for the Lady Rebels since 2006. The 2003-04 UNLV squad advanced to the WNIT finals, losing to Creighton, 73-52.

The Lady Rebels will play St. Mary's (21-10) on Thursday, March 15 at McKeon Pavilion in Moraga, Calif. The winner will advance to play the winner of Oregon State/UC Davis in the Second Round.