Monmouth University Women Return to NCAA Tourney for First Time Since 1983

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The Monmouth women’s basketball team is heading to the NCAA Tournament after beating Towson 80-55 in the Colonial Athletic Association championship game in Maryland. Courtesy Monmouth Athletics

By Rich Chrampanis

WEST LONG BRANCH – There’s a reason it’s called March Madness. While there’s bracketology, pundits with odds and the usual suspects in every NCAA Tournament, you never know when a team might come out of nowhere and get themselves into the field of 68.

That’s exactly what happened with the Monmouth University women’s basketball team which won the CAA championship to earn the league’s automatic bid into the NCAAs.

The Hawks led wire-to-wire against top seed Towson on its home floor in an 80-55 win to secure the school’s first NCAA women’s basketball tournament bid in 40 years.

Monmouth University women’s basketball coach Ginny Boggess cut down the net at Towson after the Hawks’ first CAA Championship. Courtesy Monmouth Athletics

Second-year head coach Ginny Boggess inherited a five-win team and has suddenly accelerated the progression of the program. 

“I think this means a lot for rewriting the rhetoric of Monmouth at the Shore,” Boggess said. “We want to continue to push forward and grow our brand with the style of play that we have. This means everything with recruiting.”

Monmouth won four straight games in the CAA Tournament as the No. 7 seed, toppling the top three seeds on the way to the championship. The Hawks roster features four players from the Shore Conference with a trio of Saint Rose High products who are all graduate students – Jennifer Louro, Lovin Marsicano and Lucy Thomas – along with sophomore Antonia Panyides from Red Bank Catholic. Bri Tinsley, a graduate student who played at Virginia and James Madison, was named Most Outstanding Player of the tournament after scoring 18 points in the finals. The Cinderella run started with a win over the College of Charleston, followed by upsets of second seed Drexel, No. 3 Northeastern in the semifinals and then top-seeded Towson.

Graduate transfer Bri Tinsley was named the CAA Tournament’s Most Outstanding Player. Courtesy Monmouth Athletics

“We don’t have an all-conference kid on our team,” Boggess said. “We knew we had to be a ‘team-team’ and out-team the other teams. We’ve been saying that since Day One. When you buy into that it takes a lot of pressure off the players. You don’t have to be the woman or the go-to. You can just play basketball and just trust our teammates and have fun.”

With a five-game win streak, the Hawks (18-15) went from celebrating on the court in Maryland to gathering a few hours later for Selection Sunday. Monmouth will face Tennessee Tech, the Ohio Valley Conference champions in a “First Four” game featuring two No. 16 seeds. The game is set for Thursday at 9 p.m. at Assembly Hall in Bloomington on the campus of the University of Indiana. The winner of that game will face one of the best teams in the country in the Indiana Hoosiers, one of four No. 1 seeds in the 2023 NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament

With Monmouth making the jump from the MAAC to the CAA, it didn’t take long for the Hawks to earn their first championship in the new conference. 

“No words can really put this into perspective,” Boggess said. “Hopefully, this lets everybody know how we play what we do and how we are and we can continue to grow from here.”

The article originally appeared in the March 16 – 22, 2023 print edition of The Two River Times.