Published: March 04, 2008 11:53 pm         

WVU women to begin Big East play Sunday

MORGANTOWN — Third-seeded West Virginia will play either No. 6 Syracuse or No. 11 South Florida at 8 p.m. Sunday in the quarterfinals of the 2008 Big East Women’s Basketball Championship tournament.

The Mountaineers (23-6) received a first-round bye along with No. 1 Connecticut, No. 2 Rutgers (24-5) and No. 4 Notre Dame (23-7).

Ironically, Syracuse (22-7) whipped West Virginia 73-51 Monday in their regular-season finale at the Carrier Dome. But the Mountaineers won at USF Jan. 5 in their first Big East game of the season.

The Orange and Bulls will clash in the first-round nightcap at 8 p.m. Saturday at the XL Center in Hartford, Conn., where the four-day tournament is being played.

Fifth-seeded Pitt (20-9) and No. 12 Villanova (15-14) will open the event at noon Saturday. No. 8 Marquette (16-13) and No. 9 DePaul (19-10) will meet at 2 p.m., with No. 7 Louisville (21-8) and No. 10 St. John’s (16-13) clashing at 6 p.m.

In Sunday’s quarterfinals, it will be Notre Dame vs. the Pitt-Villanova winner at noon, UConn vs. the Marquette-DePaul winner at 2 p.m. and Rutgers vs. the Louisville-St. John’s winner at 6 p.m.

The semifinals will be played Monday, March 10, with the championship game at 7 p.m. Tuesday, March 11.

Connecticut and Notre Dame are the bye teams in the upper bracket, with WVU and Rutgers the top two teams in the lower bracket.

Single-session tickets are now on sale. The prices are $20, $25 and $30 depending on the session.

Tickets may be ordered by phoning Ticketmaster at 1-860-525-4500, 1-203-624-0033 or 1-413-733-2500. Tickets also can be purchased online logging onto the XL Center Web site at www.Hartfordciviccenter.com or Ticketmaster at www.ticketmaster.com.

Saturday’s games will be televised by Big East TV and www.bigeast.tv, Sunday’s and Monday’s games on ESPNU and Tuesday’s title game on ESPN2.