Kansas City Roos women’s basketball team qualifies for WNIT, 23-win season continues

After recording the second-most victories in program history, the Kansas City Roos women’s basketball team is headed to the postseason.

The Roos (23-8) were one of 64 teams selected to the WNIT on Sunday night. They will play at Northern Iowa in a first-round game set for 6 p.m. Thursday in Cedar Falls, Iowa. If Kansas City wins, it would play either Missouri or Drake in the second round.

Kansas City finished third in the Summit League at 12-6 and lost in the semifinals of the conference tournament to No. 2 seed South Dakota, which beat top-seeded South Dakota State for the league’s automatic NCAA Tournament bid. South Dakota State was also selected to the WNIT.

“They left their mark in a way that was just different,” Roos coach Jacie Hoyt said of her team after the Summit League Tournament. “They raised the bar, they raised the standard. They didn’t just do it as basketball players, they did it as people.”

The Roos were led by two all-Summit League first-team players in Naomie Alnatas and Brooklyn McDavid. Alnatas led the league in assists per game, field goals made and total points, ranking top-30 in the country in all three categories. McDavid ranked fourth in the conference in points per game at 15.8 and scored more than 20 points in a game eight times.

This story was originally published March 13, 2022 at 10:49 PM.