Skylights miss out on national tourney bid

The Montana State University-Northern women's basketball team had a great season. A truly remarkable season which culminated with a run to the Frontier Conference semifinals.

Unfortunately, the Skylights' season officially ended on Wednesday night. The NAIA released the qualifiers for the 2012 NAIA national tournament, which will run March 12-20 in Jackson, Tenn., and despite winning 21 games, the Skylights were not selected as an at-large team. The process for selecting at-large teams has the teams in the final coaches poll which did not earn automatic bids to the tourney swallowing up the at-large bids. Northern again received just one vote in the final coaches poll, released Wednesday morning, and that wasn't nearly enough for the Skylights to be selected.

Frontier champion Lewis-Clark State is a No. 3 seed in the tournament and will play Loyola of Louisana in the first round, while Westminster is a No. 4 seed and squares off against Bellhaven of Mississippi.

The Skylights' finished this year with a 21-9 overall record, as well as finishing third in the Frontier. Northern was picked to finish sixth this season.