Championship ^_-_. : .;9R Lane Hickenbottom/DN I THE NEBRASKA WOMEN'S BASKETBALL TEAM made the NCAA tourney and will play Kentucky in the first round. If the Huskers win, they'll most likely get UCLA in the sec ond round. Loss to KU denies NU Nebraska women face off with Kentucky in NCAAs ByAdamKunker Senior staff writer The verdict is in - and so is the Nebraska women’s basketball team. With Sunday’s announcement of the Women’s -;---;———;- NCAA Tournament P'ayers, the ’ Comhuskers netted (11) Nebraska_ their second straight (6) Kentucky__ trip to the tourney as _ a No. 11 seed and (14) WjswnarhGreenBay wilI face off with (3) UCLA_— No. 6 seed -—- Kentucky in the first round of the West Regional on March 13. “We’re very relieved and very excited,” NU Coach Paul Sanderford said, following the selection show on ESPN. “We’re just happy to be going to the tourna ment.” And they’ll be going a long way from home, too. The first and second rounds will be played at Pauley Pavilion in Los Angeles. But the locale isn’t a big concern for Nebraska. In fact, most of the players are looking forward to a trip to sunny southern California. “We’re excited,” NU guard Amanda Went said. “I’ve never been down there before, so I’m looking forward to it. Everybody is just very glad to be going.” Sanderford also said that playing in Los Angeles was probably the best site for teams in the West Region, considering the alternatives: the hostile atmosphere at No. 1 seed Louisiana Tech’s home court in Ruston, La., or Fort Collins, Colo., where second seeded Colorado State is undefeated. “We’d rather be in L.A. than Ruston, La.,” he said. The location isn t a big ' :v: ; ; ->< , x ; thing, but it’s a good place to % '■ ' play.” Playing against UK is also another welcome challenge for the Husker squad. After Sanderford’s 15 sea sons at the helm of the Western Kentucky women’s basket ball team, he said he had gained a solid base of knowledge about the Wildcats. “There’s a little familiarity there with Kentucky’s program,” Sanderford said. “We played them last year in the Cable Vision Classic. We’re looking forward to playing them again.” In last year’s Cable Vision Classic at the Bob Devaney Sports Center, the Huskers beat UK 68-59 in the championship game. For his coaching career, Sanderford is 6-3 in games with the Wildcats. “The coaches know some things about (Kentucky),” Went said. “As players, we don’t really know a whole lot about them, but we’ll just start prep ping for them on Monday, and then we’ll start learning more about them.” The Wildcats (20-10 overall, 9-8 in the Southeastern Conference) closed out their season winning five of their last six games, including two SEC Tournament games over Mississippi and Louisiana State. UK was beaten in a semifinal game with Georgia. Leading the ottense tor the Wildcats are guards Tiffany Wait, Laura Meadows and Erica Jackson. Wait is averaging 14.1 points per game, while Jackson is putting up 11.3 ppg and dishing out 4.1 assists a con test with 57 steals. Meadows and forward Shantia Owens are the rebounding leaders, with 6.1 and 6.7 boards per game, respectively. Meadows is also posting a game average of 12 points. UK’s worst loss of the season was the 98-60 drub bing at the hands of No. 2 Tennessee. If the Huskers get past Kentucky, they will most likely get another shot at UCLA, a No. 3 seed in the tournament, and a team that beat Nebraska 85-67 back on Nov. 27 in the Hawaii Rainbow Wahine Classic. The Bruins have to get past 13th-seeded Wisconsin-Green Bay. “UCLA is a very good basketball team,” Went said. “But we’d like another chance with them to show them that we can play with them.” A No. 11 seed, Sanderford and Went said, was about right where the team projected itself, and right about where it wanted to be. “We were talking about it on the bus on the way home from the Big 12 Tournament,” Wept said. “We decided we’d probably be about a 10-seed or right there, so we’re not concerned. We’re happy.” ■^1 NCAA bid By Adam Klinker Senior staff writer KANSAS CITY, Mo. - The old Kansas magic was back Friday night at Kemper Arena. And that was bad news for the mm Nebraska Kansas 77 mep’s basket Nebraska 53 ba"S" st0_ ried KU bas ketball prowess that seems to rev up come tournament time made yet another appear ance at the Big 12 Conference Tournament. It showed up just in time to catch the Jayhawks (21-9 overall) in their third con test with NU. And with the Cornhuskers owning victories in the previous two meet ings, it was just in time to prevent a third NU win. And it was just the thing the Huskers (19-12) didn’t need in their struggle to get inside the bubble of an NCAA Tournament bid. NU missed its bid Sunday. The magic was there. The shooting was on. A decidedly pro-KU crowd of 17,100 showed up. And the Jayhawks won 77-53. And just like that, the Huskers were once again stymied by the Kansas monolith that so often emerges from the conference ^tournament. But following the roller coaster Jayhawk season, the tourney win against Nebraska was especially sweet for the KU coaches and players. “Nebraska played better than us the last two times,” KU Coach Roy Williams said. “We played better than them tonight. This was the first game that we played against Nebraska that we played well.”And for as i j>>#;/?