SYRACUSE, N.Y. — A couple of familiar faces are back in the NCAA tournament, as a No. 6 seed.
Head coach Felisha Legette-Jack and guard Dyaisha Fair led the University at Buffalo women's basketball team to the NCAA tournament in 2022, when they lost a first-round game to Tennessee, 80-67.
Not long after that Legette-Jack, a Syracuse native and Orange alum, left Buffalo to lead the program she played for in college, and where her jersey has since been retired. Fair soon entered the transfer portal and followed her to play in the ACC.
After a third-round appearance in the WNIT last year, they're back in the big dance.
Syracuse (23-6) learned Sunday night that it will take on the winner of a play-in game between 11 seeds Auburn (20-11) and Arizona (17-15) in the first round of the tournament, in the Portland Region.
If Syracuse wins that game, a second-round matchup against No. 3 Connecticut awaits. On that Huskies roster is 6-foot-6 forward Amari DeBerry, a Williamsville South High School graduate who is playing an average of 4.5 minutes per game during her junior season.
Legette-Jack has a career record of 388-303. That includes a mark of 201-114 during her time in Buffalo, where she led the Bulls to the NCAA tournament four times in 10 seasons. UB made the Sweet 16 in the 2018 tournament.
Fair has scored 3,328 points during her 150-game career and ranks fifth on the women's NCAA Division I career list. She trails only Jackie Stiles (3,393), Kelsey Mitchell (3,402), Kelsey Plum (3,527), and the still-active Caitlin Clark (3,685).
Fair left as UB's all-time leading scorer and averaged 23.4 points per game in the 2021-22 season.
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