BEAUMONT, Texas - Determined to remove the bad taste of losing the Southland Conference Championship, Lamar University's women's basketball team will look to begin a national tournament run of their own as they are one of 32 teams to partake in the inaugural Women's Basketball Invitational Tournament. Starting on Thursday night at 8:00 PM (CT)/6:00 PM (PT), the Cardinals will take on Pac-12 representative Washington State at the Beasley Center in Pullman, Wash.

TOUGH LOSS
The Cardinals' 14-game winning streak unfortunately ended against Texas A&M-Corpus Christi 69-61 in the Southland Conference Championship Game. Big Red trailed 48-36 after three quarters and would fight back to within 52-49, but couldn't get closer.   

ALL-TOURNAMENT TEAM
Akasha Davis and Sabria Dean were each honored as part of the All-Tournament team in the SLC. Davis, the conference player of the year, collected two double-doubles averaging 20.0 points and 11 rebounds per game. Dean tallied 18 ppg in the two contests and was LU's leading scorer with 19 in the title game.

POSTSEASON HISTORY
The Cardinals are making their eighth national postseason trip in program history and are a combined 4-8 all-time in each of the games. LU has made two NCAA Tournament trips, four WNIT trips, and two WBI trips. Their last postseason appearance was to the WNIT in 2019.

WHAT IS THE WBIT?
The WBIT is a 32-team postseason tournament that was created in 2023 by the NCAA, who will also be owning and funding the event. The purpose behind this was to ensure the NCAA provided equal opportunities of postseason for women's basketball similar to that of men's basketball as recommended in the 2021 Gender Equity Report.

ALL-TIME AGAINST THE COUGARS
This will mark the first meeting all-time between the Cardinals and the Cougars.

MEET THE COUGARS
Washington State finished their regular season 18-13 and 7-11 in the Pac-12 Conference to finish eighth place. In their only conference tournament game, the Cougars fell 65-44 to California. WSU was ranked as high as #21 in the season after starting the season ranked 24th in the preseason polls. They are without leading scorer Charlisse Leger Walker, who suffered a season-ending injury.

THE ITALIAN STALLION DOES EXIST
Lately, Eleonoro Villa, who hails from Lissone, Italy, has been on a tear for the Cougars scoring double-figures in 15 of the last 16 games. In a stretch of 13 straight games of double-digits, Villa averaged 15.3 points, including a season-high 20 against Oregon. Against California, she was the leading scorer with 17 points. She was also selected to All-Pac 12 and was seventh in total points (398), eighth in FG% (.433), eighth in 3PT% (.338), third in total double-digit scoring games (25), eighth in points per game (12.8), fourth in made field goals (154), seventh in made threes (46), and first in minutes played (1,016) by a Cougar freshman.

SHOULD LU WIN…
With a win on Thursday, the Cardinals will advance to the second round on Sunday, March 24th against the winner of #4 Santa Clara and #5 BYU. The location of the game will be determined based on the winner of SC/BYU game. If SC wins, LU travels to Santa Clara while if BYU wins, they will travel to Provo, Utah. But, if LU loses, they will be eliminated from the WNIT effectively ending their 2023-24 campaign.