At long last, the Arkansas State Red Wolves women’s basketball team is going to the NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament. This will be the team’s first ever appearance in their 50 years of playing.

The team hosted a watch party on Sunday, March 16 at Centennial Bank Stadium to see where the team would be seeded in the 68-team tournament. It was announced that A-State was slated to play the UConn Huskies as a 15 seed.

“We’re in a situation that has never been done in program history,” head coach Destinee Rogers said. “I couldn’t be more thankful for these young women, this program, and this university. We’re excited.”

The Red Wolves will enter the game against UConn as massive underdogs. ESPN has the Huskies as 44-point favorites in the game. For those familiar with women’s college basketball, it’s not hard to understand why that is.

The Huskies are one of the most storied programs in women’s basketball history. They have won the national championship 12 times, and have appeared in 23 Final Fours. This includes a stretch where they appeared in the Final Four every year from 2008 to 2022. The Huskies head coach, Geno Auriemma, is considered one of, if not the best head coach in the history of women’s collegiate basketball. Currently, the projected first-overall pick in the WNBA Draft, point guard Paige Bueckers, plays for the Huskies.

UConn also has the advantage of history. In the history of the women’s tournament, no 15-seed has ever won a game in the tournament. But Coach Rogers said that her team was not intimidated.

“This is a dream come true to coach against one of the GOATs of women’s basketball. But we’re not scared,” Rogers said.

The Red Wolves have plenty going for them as well. A-State currently leads the nation in made three-pointers per game with 10.6 per game. A-State is also familiar with being an underdog, as they defeated a powerful team in James Madison for the conference championship.

Upsets also happen in the women’s tournament, although somewhat less frequently than in the men’s. While no 15-seed has ever won a game, a 16-seed has. In 1998, the 16th seeded Harvard Crimson defeated the Stanford Cardinal in an upset for the ages, becoming the first 16-seed to ever win a game of either the men’s or women’s tournament. So an upset is possible for the Red Wolves as well.

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