ICYMI: Auto bids locked in, Northeastern bus stuck in snow

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NEW YORK (AP) The conference tournaments are finished and now the wait is almost over for the women's basketball NCAA Tournament.

Little Rock earned the final automatic bid winning the Sun Belt Conference on Sunday night.

Now 32 teams will wait to see if they earned an at-large bid to the tournament, which begins Friday. The NCAA revealed the final eight teams under consideration for the tournament Sunday night.

There will be anxious moments for all eight of those schools over the next day until the bracket is revealed Monday night.

''We certainly worked hard, as did all the teams. We would welcome the opportunity to be an NCAA team. I'm extremely proud of the success we've had this year and I'm hoping that we are selected,'' Rutgers coach C. Vivian Stringer said.

The Scarlet Knights were one of the eight teams in the final group, joining Buffalo, Creighton, Minnesota, Oklahoma, Purdue, USC and West Virginia.

''I hope the committee gives us the opportunity to play,'' Stringer said. ''Obviously, there are a bunch of teams waiting to hear if they will get in as well, but the one thing I know is that we made tremendous strides to be in a such position. There's a lot of anticipation and excitement that we are back in the hunt and back in a familiar place for myself and the Scarlet Knights.''

NORTHEASTERN vs a NOR'EASTER: The Northeastern women's basketball team bus got stuck in the snow on Wednesday in Philadelphia as the squad practiced before the Colonial Athletic Association Tournament. The bus stalled just 10 minutes into the ride and when it wouldn't move the team took matters into its own hands, pushing the bus back on track .

The Huskies ended up losing its game the next day to Delaware.

POLL WATCH: With most of the Top 25 done playing last weekend, there isn't much movement expected in the final poll of the season. UConn won the American Athletic Conference championship on Tuesday sealing its fifth straight season finishing at No. 1 in the poll.

WHAT'S ON TAP: The NCAA Tournament begins Friday with 16 games. The rest of the field of 64 begins play on Saturday.

LACK OF HOME COOKING: Both Penn and Drexel had chances to win their conference tournaments, playing the title game at home. The two schools, less than a mile apart in Pennsylvania, had dreadful starts shooting from the field and never could recover.

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