RIO GRANDE VALLEY – The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (UTRGV) Vaqueros women's basketball team will make its fifth trip to the postseason and compete in the 2026 Women's National Invitational Tournament (WNIT) as the field was announced Sunday. 
 
The full bracket will be announced Monday and the first round of the tournament will be played March 19-21. Second round games will take place March 22-24, followed by the Super 16 games March 25-27 and the Great 8 games March 28-30. The Fab 4 games will be scheduled March 31-April 1 and the WNIT Championship game is set for April 4 at 2 p.m. (CT) at a location to be determined. 
 
The Vaqueros finished the regular season 20-13, setting program records for overall wins, conference wins (16), road wins (10), conference road wins (9), consecutive conference road wins (8), consecutive conference wins (7) and wins before the conference tournament (19). UTRGV matched the program's longest winning streak of seven games. The Vaqueros finished the regular season tied for third in the conference standings, their best finish since claiming the No. 2 seed in the Western Athletic Conference Tournament in 2018-19. The Vaqueros reached the semifinals of the Southland Conference (SLC) Women's Basketball Championships, earning their first conference tournament victory since the 2021-22 season. 
 
UTRGV is currently No. 200 in the NET rankings, the highest under head coach Lane Lord. The Vaqueros are 183^rd in NET strength of schedule (SOS) and 18^th in non-conference SOS. 
 
UTRGV made three consecutive postseason appearances from 2014-17. The first was in 2014-15 as the Vaqueros competed in the Women's Basketball Invitational (WBI). In 2015-16, the squad was selected for the WNIT. UTRGV earned the first postseason win in program history in 2016-17 as it reached the quarterfinals of the WBI, knocking off top-seeded Stephen F. Austin, 62-54, at the UTRGV Fieldhouse. UTRGV returned to the WBI in 2018-19. 
 
The WNIT is hosted by Triple Crown Sports. The field will consist of 48 teams made of automatic selections, which are the highest-finishing teams in a conference's regular season standings which were not selected for the NCAA Tournament or WBIT, and at-large bids. To be eligible for an at-large berth, teams must have an overall record of .500 or better. 

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