is no stranger to a deep run in the NCAA Tournament. â¯
The ¶¶MÅ®ÆÍ womenâs basketball team recently won the Mid-American Conference Tournament championship for the first time since 2002. That same year, the menâs hoops team reached the Elite Eight in March Madness.
According to a bracket by Inside Higher Ed, the student-athletes on the 2023-24 womenâs team are championship caliber.
The publicationâs , which pits NCAA Tournament basketball teams against each other based on academic success, shows why ¶¶MÅ®ÆÍ is a powerhouse on and off the court. â¯
âThis team is phenomenal academically,â ¶¶MÅ®ÆÍ womenâs coach Todd Starkey said Friday during a news conference. âThese are true-student athletes.â
According to the Inside Higher Ed bracket, the Golden Flashes would reach the championship game based on academic credentials. ¶¶MÅ®ÆÍ President Todd Diacon actually shared the news with the team.
The ¶¶MÅ®ÆÍ womenâs basketball team has an average cumulative GPA of 3.478, which is among the best in the universityâs athletic department.
In womenâs March Madness, the 15th-seeded Golden Flashes will face No. 2 Notre Dame in a first-round game at 2:15 p.m. Saturday at the Joyce Center. It wonât be the first time Starkey leads a team during the tournament in South Bend, Indiana.
âThe last time I was in the NCAA Tournament, I was an assistant at Indiana, and we played here at Notre Dame. So there's some familiarity to being here for me,â Starkey said.
Even though they are on the road, ¶¶MÅ®ÆÍ players know they have the entire Golden Flashes community supporting them. â¯
âWe were just excited and we got some energy going into this, and we are going to try to use all the energy we got from winning the MAC Tournament to go into this game and just play with confidence and know that there's people watching us and supporting us,â Katie Shumate, a senior biology major and star guard, said during a news conference.
Saturdayâs game will not be the first time this season the womenâs team has played on a national stage. ¶¶MÅ®ÆÍ faced reigning national champion LSU in November and gained valuable experience. â¯
Now, after winning the 2024 Mid-American Conference Tournament, Starkey said his team appreciates the significance of representing the conference. â¯
âItâs an honor to carry the flag,â Starkey said, âand we want to make our league proud. âWe want to compete in a way thatâs representative of our what our conference is.â