Rhodes College women's basketball team receives first NCAA tourney bid

from Commercial Appeal

Fresh off winning the Southern Athletic Association tournament on Sunday, the Rhodes College women’s basketball team received its first bid to the NCAA Division 3 tournament.

The Lynx (24-3) will play host to Louisiana College (24-4) at 7 p.m. Friday at Mallory-Hyde Gymnasium. Also playing at Rhodes will be Washington-St. Louis (20-5) and Texas-Dallas (20-8) The winners will play in the second round on Saturday.

“I’m real excited for our kids,” Rhodes coach Matt Dean said. “We had a tremendous effort (Sunday) in Jackson, Miss. and won a gutsy game on Millsaps’ home floor. This is such a reward. It’s the first time in school history that the women’s team has participated in the NCAA tournament. We’re just going to approach it one game at a time. We think with 24 wins in one year, we feel like we can play with a lot of people.”

In the SAA championship game against Millsaps, the Lynx came back from four points down with 1:38 to play to pull out a 66-64 victory. Junior Lauren Avant scored six points on three layups in 44 seconds, and added a free throw with 1.8 seconds left to clinch the win.

Avant, a Tennessee transfer who also played at Lausanne, finished with 30 points and was named the tournament’s most valuable player. Sophomore Sarah Johnson had a career high 12 assists and was named to the all-tournament team.