MORGANTOWN — Ticket sales were halted on Monday for Saturday’s opening round of the NCAA women’s basketball tournament regional to be held at Hope Coliseum.
It took all of 140 minutes for the arena to sell out of all-session and first-session passes, as well as individual tickets to West Virginia’s first-round matchup against Miami (Ohio), which tips off at 5 p.m. Saturday.
Kentucky and James Madison play in the first game at 2:30 p.m.
According to WVU officials, the school had 13,000 tickets available – Hope Coliseum seats 14,000 – with about 1,000 more allotted to the players, coaches and athletic department officials of the four schools.
If any of those tickets are returned to WVU, they will go up for sale later this week, but school officials expect that number to be an extremely limited amount. Tickets are still available for Monday’s game, although there is no guarantee WVU will be playing in that game.
Essentially, WVU’s game against Miami (Ohio) will be a sellout, the program’s first at Hope Coliseum since a 2013 matchup against then No. 1-ranked Baylor during the regular season.
This is the first time since 1992 that WVU has hosted the women’s NCAA tournament. In 1992, WVU defeated Clemson, 73-72, in front of 8,268 fans.
Last week, WVU head coach Mark Kellogg threw out a challenge to WVU fans to embrace the moment and buy tickets.
“I want to challenge everybody. Come on now, let’s go Mountaineer fans,” Kellogg said. “We talk about being Mountaineer fans and that we have so much support, we know we worked really hard to try and get this and if we do, it is program defining, athletic department defining, this is women’s basketball defining. It’s all those things. We’re growing a brand, we’re growing women’s basketball, these kids have earned the right for us, so let’s take advantage of it.”
Tickets to the general public went on sale at 10 a.m. Monday. It took just a little more than two hours for sales to be halted.
