FORT MYERS, Fla. — Here in FSW the women's basketball team is known not just in the conference, but around the entire country.
But for the last two years, they haven't been able to punch their ticket into the national tournament.
And that's largely due to the amount of talent residing here in the state of Florida.
"Well we all have to attend our regional tournament qualifier," said head Women's Basketball coach Ellis. "The winner gets the automatic birth. Second-place usually gets one of the at large bids. So there's only 16 automatic and ate at large. So with eight at large beds, that's a 24 team field. That doesn't give you a whole lot of leeway. So you can see how competitive it is in our region."
So let's break down what exactly coach is explaining.
The state tournament is actually called the region a tournament.
And that means, they have to win that just to get an automatic bid into the NJCAA tournament.
But to do that, they have to go through six teams ranked in the top 15 in the Massey ratings.
"So if we have six teams in the top 15, but yeah, we don't all get to make it to the national tournament," said Ellis. "We expect to win our conference, we expect to win our regional conference and get that bed. If we don't get it, then it's reloading let's go for next year."
