The NCAA News - News and Features

March 9, 1998

Division I Women's Basketball

Unbeaten Tennessee favored again

Event: 1998 Division I Women's Basketball Championship.

Overview: Tennessee is undefeated and looking to make it a "three-peat" this year. The most outstanding play-er in last year's Women's Final Four, Chamique Holdsclaw, continues to excel for the Lady Vols, averaging 22.9 points per game. Tennessee's closest game was against Alabama in February, a 73-66 win. The Lady Vols have recorded double-digit victories against probable championship challengers from Louisiana Tech, Stanford, Connecticut and Old Dominion this season .... With the loss of Nykesha Sales to an injury, Connecticut (28-2) will have to look to others to make up for the loss. Freshman Svetlana Abrosimova averages 14.5 points and 6.1 rebounds per game and will look to fill the shoes of Sales .... Louisiana Tech is led by Amanda Wilson and Alisa Burras. Both Lady Techsters are shooting more than 60 percent from the field .... Stanford has been in the top five most of the season. Senior Olympia Scott has been a big contributor in both scoring (18.2 ppg) and rebounding (7.8).

Field: The 64-team field includes 30 teams from conferences with automatic qualification and 34 teams selected at large.

Dates and sites: First- and second-round games will be played at on-campus sites March 13 and 15 or March 14 and 16. Regional games will be March 21 and 23 at Dayton (East), Vanderbilt (Mideast), Texas Tech (Midwest) and California (West). The Women's Final Four will be March 27 and 29 at Kemper Arena in Kansas City, Missouri.

Media Coverage: ESPN will televise 27 games of the championship, including the regional semifinals and finals and the Women's Final Four. NCAA Productions will offer broadcasts of selected games.

Information/results: The fax-on-demand telephone number is 770/399-3060 (passcode 1915); request numbers are 1259 for the bracket/schedule, 5062 for semifinal box scores and 5063 for championship-game results. Game scores and pairings also will be available on the World Wide Web at www.ncaa.org. Scores from first- and second-round competition will appear in the March 23 issue of The NCAA News. Regional results will be published March 30. Results from the Women's Final Four will be in the April 6 issue of the News.