Women’s team Tennessee-bound for NCAA tourney

UB is going dancing in Tennessee.

The women’s basketball team, fresh off winning the MAC Tournament championship this past weekend in Cleveland, hustled back home to Alumni Arena to learn Sunday night it will face the Tennessee Lady Volunteers on Saturday in Knoxville.

As the upcoming matchup was announced on the jumbotron, the team and a boisterous contingent of fans leapt from their seats to cheer what will be the Bulls’ fourth NCAA tournament appearance in seven years, all under the guidance of coach Felisha Legette-Jack.

Many of the fans — the embodiment of True Blue, the university’s new spirit campaign — were clad in blue T-shirts and waived white pom-poms as team members danced under the scoreboard and captured the moment with their smartphones.

Legette-Jack, who led UB teams to the Big Dance in 2016, 2018 and 2019, spoke to The Buffalo News Sunday evening.

“We’ve been through this before, and you’d think we’d say, ‘oh, there’s our name,’” Legette-Jack told The News. “But no, we’re like, ‘oh my God!’ And once I lose the feeling of this youthfulness, of loving to see our name come up there, we’ve got to walk away.

“To have these young people beside me, that are really transcending that fun, I am just overwhelmed by how lucky I am to be their coach.”

President Satish K. Tripathi offered his congratulations to the Bulls after they took the MAC Championship in Clevelend. “I’m looking forward to cheering on the team during March Madness,” Tripathi said. “Go Bulls!”

The game, which will occur on the Volunteers’ home court in Thompson-Boling Arena, comes as the Bulls ride a hot streak. The team has won nine straight, and 14 of their last 15 games, to post a 25-8 record. That was enough to earn the No. 13 seed in the tournament’s Wichita Regional.

Tennessee is 23-8 on the season and went 11-5 in the Southeastern Conference (SEC), which is one of the nation’s powerhouse conferences. The Volunteers, which lost to eventual SEC champion Kentucky in the semifinals of the SEC Tournament, earned the No. 4 seed in the Wichita Regional.

Saturday’s game will allow Bulls’ fans to reintroduce themselves to Danny White, who was UB’s athletic director from 2012-15. He assumed the same position for the Volunteers last year after roughly six years at the University of Central Florida.

This is the first meeting ever between Buffalo and Tennessee, and the second time that the Bulls will face an SEC opponent in the NCAA Tournament. Tip-off time will be announced later this week.