Gators Women's Basketball Secures Spot in WBIT

The Gators overcame a tough go about in conference play to qualify for this season's WBIT

The Gators will host the first game of the WBIT / Jim Dedmon-Imagn Images

For the second year in a row, the Florida Gators women's basketball team (16-17) is headed to the Women’s Basketball Invitation Tournament (WBIT). As a No. 3 seed, they’ll start the tournament at home against No. 6 seed Northern Iowa (17-16) on Thursday at 7 p.m. in the O’Connell Center.

It’s been a season of ups and downs for Florida. After a 9-5 start to the season, they went 7-12 the rest of the way, including a 5-11 record against the SEC.

However, the Gators enter the WBIT having played some of their best basketball in recent weeks. They picked up two wins in the SEC Tournament, starting with a 60-50 victory over Auburn in round one before delivering their biggest win of the year—a 63-61 upset over No. 19 Alabama, their first win against a ranked team since 2022. Their run ended in the quarterfinals, when they lost 101-87 to No. 9 LSU.

That pair of wins in the tournament was just the second time during conference play that the Gators won back-to-back games.

Leading the charge for Florida is true freshman guard Liv McGill, who has emerged as the team’s go-to scorer. McGill has averaged 16.2 points per game this season, and was an SEC All-Freshman Team selection. The true freshman finished the regular season as one of the top five freshmen scorers in the nation. 

Alongside her, senior center Ra Shaya Kyle has had a solid senior season. The 6'6  Indiana native is averaging 14.5 points and 8.8 rebounds per game (sixth in the SEC).

Northern Iowa, most recently played in the Missouri Valley Tournament, where they were eliminated in the quarterfinals by Belmont, 64-46. The Panthers are led by junior guard Maya McDermott, who averages 18.5 points and 4.5 assists per game while shooting 43.9% from the field.

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