Jackson State women excited for 15 seed

When Selection Monday rolled around for the Women’s NCAA Tournament, Jackson State head coach Tomekia Reed was expecting to hear her team’s name called early. When it didn’t happen, she kind of got worried.

“I said y’all ‘I think they forgot about us. I said, We did win, we get an automatic bid. We have clinched our spot but they forgot about us,” Reed told the media via Zoom. “They said no, coach, that means we’re a higher seed. I said ‘well come on with it.”

Reed and Jackson State were awarded a no. 15 seed. The SWAC champions will take on Baylor on Sunday at 3 P.M. EST.

“It’s some level of respect there,” Reed said. “I was looking earlier today that we were ranked no. 111 in the country, and we were above a lot of teams that’s playing in the tournament. So I didn’t know we were gonna be a 15 seed to be honest, but I did know that we were ranked higher.”

JSU (18-5) will still have its work cut out despite the fact that Baylor isn’t a no. 1 seed. After all, it is 22-2 this season.

“But it’ll be a good opportunity and a good experience to play a team like  Baylor. We started looking at UConn, we started looking at South Carolina. We watched Stanford, we just didn’t know who we were going to play so now we know and we’re going to start our preparation.”

Jackson State opened the season against no. 6 Mississippi State. JSU lost that game 88-58, but that did give the team experience against top-level talent. JSU has won a total of 16 games in a row, and 18 of its last 19 overall.

Jackson State features both SWAC Player of The Year in Dayzsha Rogan and the SWAC Defensive Player of The Year in Ameysha Williams.