Women’s basketball misses tournament due to COVID-19

Two-week pause keeps Toreros from making trip to Vegas for WCC tourney

Eric Boose / Sports Editor / The USD Vista

A year after coming within seconds of the West Coast Conference tournament title, the University of San Diego women’s basketball team missed the tournament entirely due to a positive COVID-19 test within the program. USD announced on Feb. 25 that the team would not compete for two weeks due to the positive result, meaning the team would not travel to Las Vegas for the tournament, which began on March 4. 

USD Athletics’ strategic communications department said that the team would not take questions about them missing the tournament, but a player agreed to speak to The USD Vista on the condition that they not be named.

“I think everybody was really bummed and sad that we weren’t going to have two more weeks of playing,” the player said, describing the team’s reaction when the pause was announced. “It was hard to hear, and the team reacted with … we were just shocked, and sad, and not happy about it, but there was nothing really we could do.”

She added that seeing the WCC tournament progress without the Toreros has been difficult.

“It hasn’t been easy to see other WCC teams playing in the tournament when we’re not and we’re sitting in quarantine,” she said.

USD Associate Vice President and Executive Director of Athletics Bill McGillis called the season-ending pause “devastating.”

“I’ve delivered a lot of tough messages in my career, but to have to tell a team that their season had abruptly come to an end was heartbreaking,” McGillis said via email. “Every little girl who plays basketball dreams of playing in the NCAA tournament, so it is especially difficult for these women to not have the opportunity to play for the WCC championship and the league’s automatic bid to the NCAA tournament. We certainly have a team that was capable of winning it all.”

As McGillis pointed out, the situation is especially heartbreaking because the Toreros were seconds away from winning the entire competition last year, falling in overtime to the Portland Pilots, and while their road would not have been easy, they would have had a decent crack at getting back to the finals this year. USD finished the regular season with a 9-5 record in WCC play (12-7 overall), which would have made them the fourth seed, needing only two wins to make a return trip to the championship game. 

Of course, one of those games would have been a semifinal matchup with the top-seeded Gonzaga Bulldogs, who beat the Toreros 69-47 in San Diego on Feb. 20. But nothing is guaranteed, and USD did claim victories over the third-seed USF Dons and second-seed BYU Cougars during the regular season, so an upset against the Zags would not have been out of the question.

But there will be no upset. And, in missing the conference tournament, San Diego has also missed their best chance of playing meaningful postseason basketball. The winner of the WCC tournament automatically earns a bid to March Madness. No tournament means no automatic bid for the Toreros. They are not likely to make it as an at-large team either; USD is 119th in the NCAA Evaluation Tool (NET) rankings. Only 64 teams make the NCAA tournament. 

There is another option: the Women’s National Invitational Tournament (WNIT). Since the first round of this year’s women’s NIT starts March 19, the Toreros would be able to play if they get selected. But that is still just an “if.” The WNIT only takes 32 teams. Working purely off the NET rankings, the selection committee would have to overlook 23 teams ahead of San Diego in the rankings for the Toreros to get a spot in that tournament. The WNIT field will be announced Monday, March 15, but according to the player, any and all postseason basketball is out of the question for USD.

“It is season over for the team,” she said. “I’m not sure why, but I think because we didn’t play in the WCC tournament, and other reasons, we don’t qualify for a postseason tournament. So, basically, there is no postseason.”

While this season may be over, McGillis was optimistic about the team’s prospects for next season.

“I’m proud of the class of the women in our program and the manner in which they dealt with adversity throughout the season, including in that final moment,” McGillis said. “I do know that we have a very resilient and talented group and that, for those who return, we will be well positioned to experience March Madness next year.”