Princeton Gets No. 12 Seed, Will Take on No. 5 Seed Maryland Friday

NCAA Bracket
PRINCETON, N.J. – The No. 12 seeded Princeton Tigers will be heading to Raleigh, N.C., as they battle the No. 5 seeded Maryland Terrapins on Friday at 12:30 p.m., the NCAA Selection Show revealed tonight.

"Seeing your name in the bracket never gets old," said head coach Courtney Banghart. "The fact that we are able to play a great team, like Maryland, not on their home court in March makes me so proud of the program. I have such great respect for Brenda (Frese) and she's been so great to me in this coaching business and that program has sustained excellence much like Princeton."

Princeton has been to the NCAA Tournament seven times in the last nine years, all under Banghart. The Tigers last went to the Big Dance in 2016, when they were the first Ivy League team to receive an at-large bid. The team got to this point by winning the Ivy League Tournament after earning the outright conference crown in the regular season. The program has won 13 Ivy titles, 10 of which have been outright.

The Tigers made four straight trips to the Big Dance from 2010-14 and then made the trip again last season. In 2015, the team won its first NCAA game over Green Bay, 80-70, and became just the second Ivy League team to ever win a contest in the NCAA Tournament.

Princeton is the No. 12 seed in the Kansas City bracket. The Maryland Terrapins went 25-7 this season and 12-4 in the Big Ten Conference. Maryland fell to the Ohio State Buckeyes in the Big Ten Championship game on Mar. 4. The Terrapins come into this week as the No. 16 team in the country according to the USA Today Coaches' Poll and Associated Press Top 25 poll. The Tigers and Terrapins have faced off twice, the last in the second round of the 2015 NCAA Tournament.

The winner of the Princeton-Maryland game will take on the winner of the other opening round game in Raleigh, between the fourth-seed North Carolina State and 13th-seeded Elon. That game will be held Sunday, at a time to be determined.

Sitting at 2-2, Princeton rolled off three straight victories before a loss to Rutgers on Dec. 13. After that, the Tigers wouldn't lose for over a month, reeling off seven consecutive victories including their first victory over Penn in almost three years.

A loss at Yale hardly slowed down Princeton as it ran off another seven-game winning streak, earning its 20th victory over the season and a berth in the Ivy League Tournament at Dartmouth (Feb. 23). The Tigers later clinched the No. 1 seed with a victory over Brown (Mar. 2) and won the outright title the next night vs. Yale (Mar. 3).

Princeton completed the year with dominating performances over Yale and Penn in the Ivy Tournament to earn the conference's automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament.

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