When the women’s NCAA Tournament committee made the unprecedented move Sunday of announcing the final eight teams in consideration for at-large bids, Nebraska players and coaches exhaled.
Nebraska, long considered a bubble team, wasn’t mentioned.
“If I’m being honest, when our name wasn’t on the list, I think that kind of gave me a little more confidence our name was going to be called today,” Nebraska senior Emily Wood said, “just because we had beaten the other Big Ten teams on that list.”
Yet as the Huskers gathered at Williams’ home on Monday evening to watch the selection show, nerves became frayed when all but two games had been revealed, and Nebraska’s name hadn’t been uttered.