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PROVO — After finishing its first season in the "best conference in the country" with a .500 record in the regular season, the BYU women's basketball team is still playing.
The Cougars (16-16) accepted an invitation to the inaugural Women's Basketball Invitational Tournament, one of 10 teams from the Big 12 that will play in the postseason. They'll open the NCAA-backed WBIT on the road at fourth-seeded Santa Clara on Thursday night (7 p.m. MDT, ESPN+).
After wrapping up the regular season with a 16-15 record for 10th place in the Big 12 — one spot above the Cougars' preseason coaches' projection — BYU's Big 12 tournament debut lasted just one game, a 77-53 loss to Kansas.
Following the loss, head coach Amber Whiting proclaimed the league to be one of, if not the, best women's basketball conferences in the country. The statement has been backed up in men's basketball, but competition for the mark has been fierce with stars from the Big Ten, Pac-12, SEC and Big East, in addition to the Big 12.
"This is the best conference in the country," Whiting said after acknowledging the "jump start" in the Cougars' first year in the league. "Every single night out, when you have to play the best of the best, that's what I love to do."
By the evening of Selection Sunday, the conference had an argument to make.
The Big 12 earned the most NCAA Tournament bids in over a decade, tying for the second-most all-time with seven selections including tournament champion Texas, regular-season champ Oklahoma, fourth-seeded Kansas State, fifth-seeded Baylor, seventh-seeded Iowa State, and a pair of eight seeds in Kansas and West Virginia.
The Atlantic Coast and Southeastern conferences led all leagues with eight teams each in the field of 68, according to the Associated Press. The Big Ten, Pac-12 and Big 12 had seven apiece, and the Big East three.
It's the third consecutive year the Big 12 has had at least six invites to the NCAA Tournament, with three more playing in the WBIT (BYU and TCU) and independently run WNIT (Cincinnati).
Texas and Oklahoma will depart the league for the SEC this summer. But the conference will also add three NCAA entrants in Utah and Colorado, both No. 5 seeds, and Arizona, which will open the tournament in the First Four.
"The gauntlet that the Big 12 is, people don't understand until you're in it and you're playing it night in and night out," Whiting said. "I kept watching last night counting until we got seven teams in. Even of those teams that got in from the Pac-12, three are coming to our conference next year. It only gets harder. … People need to recognize that; we've got a lot of good players and a lot of good coaches. I will stand by that it is the best conference in America — because it's crazy hard."
BYU freshman point guard Amari Whiting stood behind her mother and head coach regarding the tough out that is the Big 12, adding that the pace of play and physicality were even more difficult to comprehend than she initially thought. The physical nature of the conference took its toll, including on the guard line.
"These guards aren't afraid to go through someone's body or get bumped and finish," the younger Whiting said. "If you're going to foul them, you've got to foul them a little bit harder — but also be smart, cut a ball off or just be a little bit smarter that way."
In the WBIT, the Cougars get a chance to extend their season and build for the future with a young team in a tournament that runs parallel to the men's NIT on campus sites up to semifinals and finals at historic Hinkle Fieldhouse in Indianapolis. Starting shooting guard Kailey Woolston will be a game-time decision after injuring her knee on the final play for the first half against Kansas, when the freshman who has received her church mission call to Baltimore, Maryland spent the second half on the bench with an ice bag and wrap on her knee.
If 13.3 points-per-game scorer is unable to play, BYU will have its hands full with the Broncos, coming off an all-time season that includes the second-most wins in program history at 24-8. Santa Clara is led by the duo of Tess Heal and Olivia Pollerd, who have already set the program's all-time scoring mark by a duo with 1,103 points in a season.
Heal, who broke out for WCC newcomer of the year honors in BYU's final season in the league, earned an all-WCC first-team selection after averaging 19.6 points per game and eclipsing the 1,000 career point mark in just her 57th appearance.
She needs 11 points to eclipse Santa Clara's single-season record for points of 639 set by Melissa King in 1991-92.
But the Broncos are just one of many top teams in the 32-team WBIT, the official secondary tournament in women's basketball backed by the NCAA that will host its semifinals and finals at historic Hinkle Fieldhouse in Indianapolis. Penn State, James Madison, Villanova and Washington State earned the top four seeds, with the Dukes taking a top seed after Miami declined an automatic berth.
"When you see the teams in there and the caliber of teams, it's all the teams that just missed out (on the NCAA Tournament)," Whiting said. "We've got two Big 12 teams in it, and another one in the NIT, so that's a total of 10 out of 14 teams playing in the postseason. We're grateful and thankful. But we also want to make some noise."
