Dayton Flyers women will play DePaul in first round of NCAA tournament

An eight-day wait ended for the Dayton Flyers women’s basketball team on Sunday as it heard its name called on the NCAA tournament selection show.

Dayton (25-5) last played March 5 when it lost 62-56 to Massachusetts in the Atlantic 10 Conference tournament championship game. Since then, it has waited to find out of it would receive an at-large bid, and it didn’t have to wait long Sunday. It heard its name called in the reveal of the first region, the Greensboro Region. The players jumped out of their chairs in excitement when they heard the news, according to a video shared on Instagram.

Explore» MEN'S TOURNAMENT: Flyers first team out of field

Dayton earned a No. 11 seed and will play another No. 11 seed, DePaul (22-10), in an opening-round game at 9 p.m. Wednesday in Ames, Iowa. The winner will play No. 6 seed Georgia (20-9) in Ames on Friday.

If Dayton were to beat DePaul and Georgia, it would play No. 3 Iowa State or No. 14 UT Arlington in the second round Sunday.

Dayton leads the series against DePaul 10-7. The teams last played in 2012.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Dayton Women’s Basketball (@daytonwbb)

This is the first year the NCAA women’s tournament has had 68 teams like the men’s tournament. In future years, the first four games will be played at a neutral site as is done with the First Four at UD Arena on the men’s side.

This will be Dayton’s third NCAA tournament appearance in coach Shauna Green’s six seasons. It would have had a fourth bid if the 2020 tournament hadn’t been cancelled. This will be Dayton’s ninth tournament appearance, and all of them have come since 2010.

Dayton won an automatic bid by winning the A-10 tournament in Green’s first season. The last time Dayton won an at-large bid before this season was 2018.