It took them five years, but the Texas Tech Lady Raider basketball team is headed back to the NCAA Championship. Tech was selected as the No. 8 seed in the Spokane region of the 2011 NCAA Women’s Championship.

The No. 8 seeded Lady Raiders will battle No. 9 seeded St. John’s in a first round tournament game tomorrow, March 19th at 3p.m. CDT on ESPN2. Should the Lady Raiders win their opening round game they’ll face the winner of the matchup between No. 1 seed Stanford and No. 16 seed. The second round game would be Monday the 21st at 8:30 p.m. CDT.

This will be the first meeting between the two teams in school history. The Red Storm enters the game at 21-10 on the season and finished in a tie for 7th place in the Big East at 9-7. St. John’s also has two players scoring over 12 points per game.

This is the first appearance in the NCAA Women’s Championship for Head Coach Kristy Curry at Tech. She appeared in 7 NCAA Women’s Championships while she was the head coach at Purdue, including being the runner up in the 2000-2001 season. Curry made the NCAA Tournament every year she was at Purdue.

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