Penn State women’s basketball missed out on the NCAA Tournament on Sunday evening, taking home the distinction of being the highest ranked team in the NET Rankings to miss the tournament on both the men’s and women’s side. The Lady Lions finished the season ranked 27th in the NET, the highest ranked team to miss the tournament on the women’s side. On the men’s side, Indiana State missed the men’s tournament despite being ranked 29th in the NET at the end of the year.
The NET Rankings are recognized as one of the main metrics used to determine the NCAA Tournament field and generally represent a team’s overall quality accounting for wins at home, on the road and the difficulty of opponents on the schedule. Opponents are grouped into four quadrants with Quad 1 representing the highest quality of teams available to schedule. The Lady Lions finished the season 3-9 against Quad 1 teams and 6-3 against Quad 2 teams, records which accounted for all losses on the season.
Penn State finished the otherwise successful 2023-24 campaign with a 19-12 record going 9-9 in Big Ten play. The Lady Lions did struggle in the back half of the year, winning just three of their final 10 games, picking up a handful of injuries along the way. Penn State rolled past Wisconsin in the opening round of the Big Ten Tournament but fell against Caitlin Clark and Iowa in the second round falling 95-62 in the second round. The Lady Lions did not have a ranked win on the year but lost to No. 8 USC on the road by a point and took now No. 12 Ohio State to overtime on the road in Columbus.
Despite missing out on the NCAA Tournament, Penn State will head to the WBIT as a No. 1 seed and will host George Mason on Thursday, March 21 in the Bryce Jordan Center in PSU’s first Invitation Tournament appearance since the 2017-18 season.
