1998 NCAA Women's Division I Basketball Tournament
| 1998 NCAA Division I Women's Basketball Tournament |
|||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 |
|||||
| Teams | 64 | ||||
| Finals site |
Kemper Arena Kansas City, Missouri |
||||
| Champions | Tennessee (6th title) | ||||
| Runner-up | Louisiana Tech (6th title game) | ||||
| Semifinalists | |||||
|
|||||
The 1998 NCAA Division I Women's Basketball Tournament began on March 13, 1998, and concluded on March 29, 1998, when Tennessee won the national title. The Final Four was held at Kemper Arena in Kansas City, Missouri, on March 27–29, 1998. Tennessee, Louisiana Tech, NC State, and Arkansas qualified to the Final Four. Tennessee and Louisiana Tech won their semi-final Final Four matchups and continued on to the championship. Tennessee defeated Louisiana Tech 93-75 to take their sixth title, and complete an undefeated season (39-0).
For the first time in the men's or women's tournament, two teams, Tennessee and Liberty, entered the tournament unbeaten (this feat was replicated in 2014 by the women's teams from Connecticut and Notre Dame). In the Mideast Regional, the Lady Vols blew out Liberty 102-58. However, in the West Regional, the expected 1-16 blowout did not happen. In that matchup, Harvard defeated an injury-plagued #1 seed Stanford on its home court 71-67, the only time in the men's or women's tournament that a 16 has ever beaten a 1. In addition, 9th-seeded Arkansas made the final four, the highest seed ever to do so in the women's tournament.
Sixty-four teams were selected to participate in the 1998 NCAA Tournament. Thirty conferences were eligible for an automatic bid to the 1998 NCAA tournament.
Thirty-four additional teams were selected to complete the sixty-four invitations.
Thirty conferences earned an automatic bid. In nineteen cases, the automatic bid was the only representative from the conference. Thirty-four additional at-large teams were selected from eleven of the conferences.
In 1998, the field remained at 64 teams. The teams were seeded, and assigned to four geographic regions, with seeds 1-16 in each region. In Round 1, seeds 1 and 16 faced each other, as well as seeds 2 and 15, seeds 3 and 14, seeds 4 and 13, seeds 5 and 12, seeds 6 and 11, seeds 7 and 10, and seeds 8 and 9. In the first two rounds, the top four seeds were given the opportunity to host the first round game. In all cases, the higher seed accepted the opportunity.
...
Wikipedia