The Huskers celebrated hearing their name called for the third consecutive year, when the 68 bids for the NCAA Women's Basketball Championship were announced during the ESPN Selection Show on Sunday evening.
The 14 Husker players and support staff members jumped to their feet, hugging, cheering, high-fiving and fist-pumping while watching together at the home of Head Coach Amy Williams, who led the Big Red to March Madness for the fifth time since 2018. It is Nebraska's 18th NCAA Tournament appearance, and the Huskers own nine all-time victories in the Big Dance including Sweet Sixteen appearances in 2010 and 2013.
"We are so excited to be dancing," Williams said. "We have been working hard as coaches and players the past week to be ready for whatever the next step, and we are so happy to be back in the NCAA Tournament. Now, we have to do our best to put our best basketball game together against an outstanding Richmond team."
Nebraska earned a No. 11 seed in the tournament and will face fellow No. 11 seed Richmond in the First Four in Durham, N.C., on Wednesday, March 18. Game time and television information has yet to be announced.
If the Huskers can defeat the Spiders, they would face No. 6 seed Baylor on Friday at Cameron Indoor Stadium. The hosts from Duke earned the No. 3 seed as the automatic bid from the ACC.
The Huskers, who were one of a record 12 Big Ten Conference teams to earn bids into the tournament, closed the regular season at No. 28 in the official NCAA NET rankings.
Richmond (26-7) ended the year at No. 37 in the NET after finishing third in the Atlantic-10 Conference regular-season standings at 15-3, behind Rhode Island and George Mason (16-2). Rhode Island earned the A-10's automatic bid with a win over George Mason in the conference championship game, after the Spiders lost to George Mason, 60-45, in the semifinals (March 7).
The Nebraska women's basketball team joined the men's team in earning NCAA bids together for the second time in three years. Both Husker teams faced Texas A&M in the first round of the 2024 NCAA Tournament. The women defeated the Aggies, 61-59 in Corvallis, Ore., on March 22, 2024 for their most recent NCAA win.
Last year, Nebraska claimed a No. 10 seed and faced No. 7 seed Louisville in Fort Worth, Texas, falling to the Cardinals, 63-58 in the first round.
Overall, Nebraska earned its sixth consecutive postseason tournament appearance since 2020 ended prematurely because of the COVID pandemic. The Huskers earned four NCAA bids (2022, 2024, 2025, 2026) while making WNIT appearances in 2021 and 2023.
Nebraska, which lost 10 of its 12 games this season to NET Top 25 Big Ten teams, while the other two losses came in one-possession games to Big Ten schools away from home, had its resume boosted this week by non-conference foes Cal Baptist (WAC) and Samford (SoCon) who both won conference tournament titles.
Overall, Nebraska played 14 of its 30 games against 2026 NCAA Tournament teams.