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

Sacred Heart, Bryant, Robert Morris, Saint Francis U, Central Connecticut, Fairleigh Dickinson, LIU Brooklyn and Mount St. Mary’s are still alive, but only one will achieve NEC supremacy on the hardwood.
 
The 30th edition of the Northeast Conference Women's Basketball Tournament tips off at campus sites on Sunday, March 6.


30 Facts for 30 Years of #NECWBB Tournament play…
1.   There will not be a repeat champion in 2016. St. Francis Brooklyn, which secured its first-ever tournament title last March, failed to qualify for this year’s event.

2.    Saint Francis U is the lone team here this year that failed to qualify in 2015.

3.    LIU Brooklyn head coach Stephanie Oliver is the lone coach in the field making her NEC Tournament debut. The Blackbirds, who have defied their tenth-place preseason ranking, are the lone member of the NEC’s New York City contingent (LIU, Wagner, SFBK) to earn a spot in the 2016 championship bracket.

4.    Sacred Heart owns the No. 1 seed for the fourth time in program history. The Pioneers own a perfect 9-0 record when playing as the NEC Tournament’s top seed.

5.    The 2015 St. Francis Brooklyn Terriers are the lone team to win three consecutive tournament road games en-route to the title.

6.    The 2016 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.

7.    Two teams in the eight-team Tournament field are still searching for their first title. Central Connecticut and Bryant have yet to cut down the nets and capture the NEC's automatic bid to the Big Dance. In fact, neither has ever made it through to the title game.

8.    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).

9.    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. St. Francis Brooklyn later matched that feat in 2015.

10.    Seeded fourth in 1991, Robert Morris had been the lowest seed to ever win the tournament title until 2010.

11.    Mount St. Mary's will be making its record 25th 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 fifth year in a row.

12.    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 (17).

13.  The No. 1 seed has won it all 17 times in 29 years.
 
14.  In the 21 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 five occasions.

15.  The 1991 RMU Colonials (13-17) and the 2015 St. Francis Brooklyn Terriers (15-18) are the only teams to win the tournament while finishing the season with a sub-.500 winning percentage.

16.  Saint Francis U has the most tournament wins (43) and most NEC titles (11) of any conference team.

17.  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.

18.  Saint Francis U 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.

19.  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.

20.  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.

21.  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.

22.  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.

23.  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 2016 NEC Player of the Year Hannah Kimmel join the club?

24. Two of the five members of the 2015 NEC All-Tournament Team are back this March – Bryant senior small forward Breanna Rucker and Robert Morris junior guard Anna Niki Stamolamprou, who earned the accolade in 2014 and 2015.

25. 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.
 
26. Robert Morris' Chinata Nesbit, a former two-time Tournament MVP, owns the lone triple-double in tourney history (2008 QF vs. SFBK).

27. Robert Morris' Sal Buscaglia leads this group of NEC Tournament coaches with 12 appearances. Buscaglia also owns a conference-record 17 tourney wins and is the lone head coach with a NEC Tournament title on his resume (2007, 2008, 2014) in this year’s field.

28. No. 8 seed Mount St. Mary’s 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.

29. 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.

30. For the ninth 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 13 at 3:00 pm ET.


2016 Northeast Conference
Women's Basketball Tournament
(all games played at home of higher seed)

#NEC16 Quarterfinals*
Sunday, March 6
#8 Mount St. Mary’s at #1 Sacred Heart, 1:00 pm
#7 LIU Brooklyn at #2 Bryant, 1:00 pm
#6 Fairleigh Dickinson at #3 Robert Morris, 1:00 pm
#5 Central Connecticut at #4 Saint Francis U, 3:00 pm
* NEC Front Row will carry all four quarterfinal games.

#NEC16 Semifinals*
Wednesday, March 9
Lowest Remaining Seed at Highest Remaining Seed, TBD
3rd Highest Remaining Seed at 2nd Highest Remaining Seed, TBD
* NEC Front Row and ESPN3 will carry both semifinals.

#NEC16 Championship
Sunday, March 13
3:00 pm ET on ESPNU, ESPN3