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Eight teams still have dreams of capturing an automatic bid to the NCAA Big Dance.

Central Connecticut, Bryant, Robert Morris, Sacred Heart, St. Francis Brooklyn, Fairleigh Dickinson, Mount St.Mary's and LIU Brooklyn are still alive, but only one will achieve NEC supremacy on the hardwood.

The 29th edition of the Northeast Conference Women's Basketball Tournament tips off at campus sites on Sunday, March 8.


1.    The 2015 NEC Tournament bracket contains two teams who were not here last year. Top-seeded Central Connecticut is back after failing to qualify in 2014 when it finished 9th in the standings with a 5-13 league record.  Fairleigh Dickinson is also back in the postseason  after missing out each of the past two years.

2.    The 2015 NEC Tournament will follow the same "high seed host" format that was reemployed in 2011. The higher-seeded teams will host games throughout the entirety of this year's event.

3.    Three teams in the eight-team Tournament field are still searching for its first title. Central Connecticut, St. Francis Brooklyn and Bryant have yet to cut down the nets and capture the NEC's automatic bid to the Big Dance. In fact, none of the three has ever made it through to the title game.

4.    Central Connecticut owns the No. 1 seed in the NEC Tournament for the first time in its program's history.  The Blue Devils were seeded as high as No. 2 twice before (1998, 2009).

5.    Two programs in this year's field have won at least two NEC Tournament titles in the past decade -- Robert Morris (2007, 2008, 2014) and Sacred Heart (2009, 2012).

6.    Saint Francis (PA) became the lowest seed ever to win the event when the No. 5 seed Red Flash went all the way in 2010.

7.    Seeded fourth in 1991, Robert Morris had been the lowest seed to ever win the tournament title.

8.    Mount St. Mary's will be making its record 24th appearance at the NEC Tournament. The Mount's string of 20 consecutive NEC Tournament appearances ended in 2010. After absences in 2010 and 2011, Bryan Whitten's team is back in the postseason for the fourth year in a row.

9.    Sacred Heart, who has qualified for the NEC Tournament every year since it joined the league in 1999, owns the longest active streak for consecutive appearances (16). 

10. The No. 1 seed has won it all 17 times in 28 years.

11. In the 20 years since the Northeast conference discontinued the six-team bracket, the No. 1 seed has won 15 times and has only missed the final on four occasions.

12. The 1991 RMU Colonials are the only team to win the tournament while finishing the season with a sub-.500 winning percentage (13-17).

13. Saint Francis (PA), which failed to qualify this year, has the most tournament wins (43) and most NEC titles (11) of any conference team.

14. The Red Flash's record win streak of 29 straight tournament victories came to a halt at the hands of Sacred Heart in the 2009 NEC Championship Game.

15. Saint Francis (PA) has made it through to the semifinal round more often than anyone else in the field. The Red Flash have been amongst the Tournament's final four on 16 occasions, and proceeded to advance to the Championship Game all 16 times.

16. The two lowest seeds to ever meet in the Championship Game were No. 4 Robert Morris and No. 6 Wagner back in 1991. RMU prevailed, 69-61.

17. Sacred Heart and Saint Francis U became the first-ever teams to score at least 100 points in a tournament game last year, and they did it while facing one another in a 2014 quarterfinal tilt. SFU prevailed, 132-124, in double overtime as the two teams accounted for the second-highest scoring game in NCAA Division I history. Both teams had exceeded the 100-point mark by the end of regulation play.

18. Prior to 2014, no team has ever reached the century mark in a game during tournament time. The single-game scoring high was 92 points, a mark that was hit by Saint Francis (PA), Monmouth and Robert Morris.

19. The largest margin of victory in a tournament game (39) came in Quinnipiac's 72-33 triumph over Saint Francis (PA) in the 2013 Championship Game.

20. Only five players have earned both Tournament MVP and Player of the Year accolades in the same season. Robert Morris’ Artemis Spanou did it in 2014. Monmouth's Linda Wilson was honored with both awards during the league's inaugural season in 1986-87, followed by Mount St. Mary's Susie Rowlyk in 1993-94 and Saint Francis (PA)'s Jess Zinobile in 1999-2000. Amanda Pape of Sacred Heart was tabbed with both honors in 2005-06.  Will 2015 NEC Player of the Year Breanna Rucker join the club?

21. Only one of the five members of the 2014 NEC All-Tournament Team are back this March – Robert Morris sophomore Anna Niki Stamolamprou.

22. Quinnipiac's Ashlee Kelly redefined "monster game" in 2004 when she poured in 38 points and grabbed 28 rebounds during a quarterfinal showdown with FDU. Two days after her tournament record 28-rebound performance, QU's Ashlee Kelly hauled in 26 boards and still owns the top two spots on the tournament's all-time single-game rebounding list.

23. Robert Morris' Chinata Nesbit, a former two-time Tournament MVP, owns the lone triple-double in tourney history (2008 QF vs. SFBK).

24. All eight head coaches in this year's field have been here before. Robert Morris’ Sal Buscaglia leads the group with 11 appearances, while Sacred Heart’s Jessica Mannetti, who is making her second visit, is the least-tenured.

25. Buscaglia has more NEC Tournament wins (15) than any other coach in this year's field.

26. Buscaglia is the lone active NEC head coach with a tournament title on his resume (2007, 2008, 2014).

27. No. 8 seed LIU Brooklyn will look to produce the second-ever 8-over-1 upset in NEC Tournament history. St. Francis (BK) was the first to pull off the feat when they ousted LIU Brooklyn in 2007.

28. Since 1994, the NEC Tournament champion has received an automatic bid to the NCAA's Big Dance. Mount St. Mary's earned the league's first-ever auto berth and faced Iowa in the 1994 NCAA First Round.

29.  For the eighth consecutive year, the NEC Women's Basketball Championship Game will reach a national TV audience via ESPNU.  This year's title tilt is set for March 15 at 3:00 pm ET.