In front of an enthusiastic crowd at Damon's Restaurant on Emmet Street, the Virginia women's basketball team looked on as ESPN revealed the Cavaliers' selection to the 2003 NCAA tournament.
This year will mark Virginia's 20th straight appearance in the Big Dance. The Cavaliers squeaked into the tournament despite an unspectacular 16-13 season record.
"It's a great honor to be in the tournament," Virginia coach Debbie Ryan said. "Especially since, in December, I'm not so sure we thought we could be."
The Cavaliers started 0-4 in the ACC and entered February 8-11 overall before winning eight of their last 10 games to end the season. Virginia's only two losses during that stretch were to No. 2 Duke and No. 11 North Carolina.
Virginia had a strong case for a bid, with an RPI of 39 and the ninth strongest schedule in the country, but history was not on the Cavaliers' side. The women's NCAA tournament selection committee never before had given an at-large bid to a team with 13 or more losses.
"Before we came here, I really thought we were going to make it, until I saw that no one had made it with 13 losses before," senior guard Liz Sahin said. "That made me nervous."
ESPN labeled the Cavaliers as a bubble team at the start of the selection show, but all doubts were extinguished when Virginia was placed in the Mideast bracket as the No. 8 seed. The relatively high seeding was surprising for a team that almost missed out playing in the tournament entirely.
"If we go from not being in the tournament to being an eight seed, that's pretty interesting," Ryan said. "I was expecting a 10 or an 11 or something like that because we had only 16 wins. I think that win over North Carolina on national television sort of pushed us into the limelight and up the ladder a little bit."
Virginia ended their home campaign with a 69-59 victory over the then-No. 7 Tar Heels, which was broadcast across the country on ESPN2. The win left the Cavaliers over .500 in the ACC and likely kept tournament hopes afloat for Virginia.
The next weekend, the Cavaliers defeated N.C. State in the ACC quarterfinals to extend their win streak to six games and move to 16-12 overall. Without this victory, Virginia's case for a bid would have been much more suspect.
The Cavaliers will play their first and second round games in Knoxville, Tenn., at Thompson-Boiling Arena and will face No. 9 seed Illinois on Saturday in the first round.
If Virginia wins, they likely will face face No. 1 seed Tennessee on their home floor in the second round. The Volunteers never have lost an NCAA tournament game in Knoxville, winning 40 straight contests at home.
ACC champion Duke was given the No. 1 seed in the Midwest. North Carolina received the No. 3 seed in the Mideast and fellow bubble team and ACC tournament semifinalist Georgia Tech locked up the No. 10 seed in the East.
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