March 14, 2011
2011 Bracket 
| Ticket Information | 
Balcomb | Tuomi, Clarke, Smith Reaction to Announcement | Quotes on Selection | NCAA Tournament Central
NASHVILLE, Tenn. – For the 12th straight season and 24th time overall, Vanderbilt’s women’s basketball team has been selected for the NCAA Tournament. The Commodores were tabbed as the No. 10 seed in the Spokane Region and will play 7th-seeded Louisville at 11:10 a.m. CT Sunday at the Cintas Center in Cincinnati. This is the second straight year Vanderbilt will travel to Cincinnati for the first two rounds.
Vanderbilt (20-11) has won at least one game in the NCAA Tournament each of the last 11 seasons and is one of only five programs to have accomplished that feat (UConn, Duke, LSU, Stanford). Overall, Vanderbilt is 37-23 all-time in the NCAA Tournament and has advanced to the Sweet 16 six of the last 10 years.
Last year, Vanderbilt advanced to the second round of the tournament before falling by one, 63-62, to host-Xavier. The second-seeded Musketeers (28-2) are hosting again this year and will play 15th-seeded South Dakota State (19-13) 30 minutes after Vanderbilt’s game against Louisville (20-12). The winners of the two games will face one another in the second round on Tuesday, March 22 with the winner advancing to the Sweet 16 in Spokane.
Ninth-year Head Coach Melanie Balcomb coached Xavier for seven seasons before coming to Vanderbilt in 2002. Balcomb is 12-8 all-time in the NCAA Tournament at Vanderbilt and has taken the Commodores to four Sweet 16s. Balcomb also took Xavier to three NCAA Tournaments, including the 2001 Elite Eight.
The top four seeds in the Spokane Regional include: No. 1 Stanford, No. 2 Xavier, No. 3 UCLA and No. 4 Kentucky. Stanford is playing in Palo Alto, UCLA is playing in Spokane and Kentucky is playing in Albuquerque.
Vanderbilt has played 31 games this season and 11 have come against NCAA Tournament foes. Making the field were non-conference opponents Bowling Green (MAC), Florida State (at-large), Princeton (Ivy), Samford (Southern) and UT Martin (Ohio Valley). Fellow SEC teams Tennessee, Kentucky and Georgia also made the field. Vanderbilt is 4-7 against NCAA Tournament teams.
Vanderbilt’s men’s and women’s teams both made the field for the second straight year. Vanderbilt is one of 15 schools to send both of its teams to the tournament two years in a row. This is the ninth year Vanderbilt has sent its men’s and women’s teams to the NCAA Tournament, but just the second time both have gone in consecutive years. The only other occurrence came in 2007 and 2008.
