INDIANAPOLIS - The NCAA Division III Women's Basketball Championship announced today the field of 50 teams for the 2004 championship.
Thirty-seven conferences have been awarded automatic qualification for the 2004 championship. Seven teams were selected from Pool B, which consists of independent institutions, and institutions that are members of conferences that do not meet the requirements for automatic qualification. The final six berths were reserved for Pool C, which are institutions from automatic-qualifying conferences that are not the conference champion and any remaining Pool B teams.
Eighteen first-round games will be conducted March 3, and sixteen second-round games will be conducted March 6. Second-round winners will advance to one of four sectional sites March 12-13. Winners of the four sectional games will advance to the finals March 19-20. All games, except the finals, will be played on the campuses of competing institutions. Finals will be conducted at the Jane P. Batten Student Center, Virginia Wesleyan College, Norfolk, Virginia.
Conferences and Teams Receiving Automatic Qualification: American Southwest Conference Hardin-Simmons Atlantic Women's Colleges Conference Mary Baldwin Capital Athletic Conference Marymount (Virginia) Centennial Conference McDaniel City University of New York Athletic Conference Hunter College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin Wheaton (Illinois) Commonwealth Conference Widener Commonwealth Coast Conference Salve Regina Empire 8 Ithaca Freedom Conference Scranton Great Northeast Athletic Conference Emmanuel (Massachusetts) Heartland Collegiate Athletic Conference Franklin Iowa Intercollegiate Athletic Conference Buena Vista Lake Michigan Conference Lakeland Little East Conference Southern Maine Massachusetts State College Athletic Conference Salem State Michigan Intercollegiate Athletic Association Albion Midwest Conference Ripon Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference Carleton New England Small College Athletic Conference Bowdoin New England Women's and Men's Athletics Conference Clark (Massachusetts) New Jersey Athletic Conference The College of New Jersey North Coast Athletic Conference Wittenberg Northern Illinois-Iowa Conference Aurora Northwest Conference Puget Sound Ohio Athletic Conference Wilmington (Ohio) Old Dominion Athletic Conference Eastern Mennonite Pennsylvania Athletic Conference Alvernia Skyline Conference Mount St. Mary (New York) St. Louis Intercollegiate Athletic Conference Maryville (Missouri) Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference Claremont-Mudd-Scripps Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference DePauw State University of New York Athletic Conference Cortland State University Athletic Association New York University Upstate Collegiate Athletic Association Union (New York) USA South Athletic Conference Christopher Newport Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference Wisconsin-Stevens Point Pool B Berths (7): Bethany (West Virginia) Chapman Husson Maryville (Tennessee) Penn State-Behrend Pittsburgh-Greensburg Thomas More Pool C Berths (6): Gwynedd-Mercy Johns Hopkins Messiah Millikin Rochester Washington (Missouri)
Trinity University (Texas) defeated Eastern Connecticut State University in the finals of last year's championship held at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology.
For more information on the 2004 NCAA Division III Women's Basketball Championship, please visit www.ncaasports.com.
