LAWRENCE, Kan. - The 2025-26 Kansas women’s basketball season will continue in the postseason after the Jayhawks accepted a bid to compete in the 2026 Women’s Basketball Invitation Tournament. The tournament field and bracket for the WBIT were announced Sunday night.
Kansas received a No. 2 seed for the WBIT and will host Troy in the first round on Thursday, March 19, at Allen Fieldhouse. Kansas will compete in the postseason for the fourth time in the past five seasons, including NCAA Tournament appearances in 2022 and 2024. In its last non-NCAA Tournament postseason appearance, the Jayhawks won six consecutive home games to capture the 2023 WNIT, which ended with a 66-59 victory over Columbia in front of 11,701 fans at Allen Fieldhouse.
Now in its third year, the WBIT is a 32-team, single-elimination tournament that will be played on campus sites for the first three rounds. The semifinals and finals will be played at Charles Koch Arena in Wichita. The WBIT is owned and funded by the NCAA.
Kansas enters the postseason with a 19-13 record, including an 8-10 mark in the Big 12. The Jayhawks went 1-1 in the Big 12 Tournament, defeating UCF 56-35 in the first round before falling to Colorado 55-48 in the second round. Kansas is led by All-Big 12 first-team selections Jaliya Davis and S’Mya Nichols. Davis, the Big 12 Freshman of the Year, is averaging 19.9 points and 6.5 rebounds per game, while Nichols averages 17.3 points per contest and leads the nation with 211 free throws made this season.
Troy enters with a 25-7 record after finishing second in the Sun Belt Conference at 15-3. The Trojans advanced to the championship game of the Sun Belt Tournament, where they lost 69-52 to James Madison. Senior forward Zay Dyer, from Troy, Alabama, is the Sun Belt Defensive Player of the Year and a first-team all-conference selection, averaging a double-double of 11.7 points and 13.0 rebounds per game.
Tickets for KU’s first-round game against Troy will go on sale Monday, March 16, at 10 a.m. CT and can be purchased by visiting KUAthletics.com or calling 800-34-HAWKS.
The top seeds for the WBIT are BYU, Texas A&M, North Dakota State and Utah. The first four teams out of the NCAA Division I Women’s Basketball Championship, as determined by the tournament committee, received automatic bids and the top seeds. Kansas is joined in the field by fellow Big 12 teams BYU, Utah and Kansas State.