MSU Women’s Basketball Finalizes Schedule with Greater Victoria Invitational

VICTORIA, British Columbia (MSU Athletics) – Mississippi State women’s basketball finalized its 2019-20 schedule Thursday with the announcement of the Greater Victoria Invitational presented by the City of Langford on Nov. 28-30.

The Bulldogs are a part of an eight-team field that consists of Stanford, Syracuse, Green Bay, Houston, Bowling Green, San Francisco and Cal Baptist. The tournament is in its second season, with the first edition being played out in Vancouver last year as the Vancouver Showcase. The games will be played at the CARSA Performance Gym on the University of Victoria campus.

State opens the tournament at 3:30 p.m. CT on Nov. 28 against San Francisco. The Bulldogs will then play either Green Bay or Bowling Green on the following day. The other half of the bracket includes matchups between Syracuse and Houston along with Stanford and Cal Baptist.

The championship game will cap the event at 9:30 p.m. CT on Nov. 30, after the games for third, fifth and seventh place have been played out earlier in the day. Broadcasting details for the tournament will be released at a later date.

The Bulldogs’ matchup against San Francisco will be the first ever meeting between the two programs. State owns a perfect 5-0 record against the field all time, boasting wins over Houston (3), Syracuse (1) and Green Bay (1).

San Francisco has one of the youngest rosters in the country with 10 underclassmen. The Dons have to replace the production of second-team All-WCC selection Shannon Powell, who led the team in points (15.0), rebounds (5.6), assists (3.3) and steals (2.0) per game as a senior last year. USF returns two starters from a season ago in sophomores Lucija Kostic (7.1 ppg, 4.8 rpg, 2.8 apg) and Abby Rathbun (7.3 ppg, 4.3 rpg).

Stanford will enter the season ranked inside the top 10 after advancing to the Elite Eight last season. The Cardinal returned four starters and added the top player in last year’s recruiting class. Syracuse will be considered a top-25 team again this season, while Green Bay, Houston and Cal Baptist all finished inside the top half of their respective conferences in 2018-19. Bowling Green rounds out the strong field.

The Greater Victoria Invitational finalizes State’s non-conference schedule, which includes contests against West Virginia, Marquette and Little Rock. MSU will also compete in the Duel in the Desert tournament, opening with South Florida before taking on either Virginia or UNLV.

Tickets for the event go on sale Friday, Sept. 20, and can be purchased at vikestickets.universitytickets.com. Full tournament info can be found at www.VictoriaInvitational.com.