INDIANAPOLIS - The NCAA and Women's Basketball Invitational Tournament committee announced on Sunday evening the bracket for the 2026 WBIT. As the regular season champions of the Patriot League, the Navy women's basketball team was prominently featured as one of the events' 32 participants. One of 13 automatic qualifiers due to their status a regular season champion, Navy will begin WBIT play on Thursday evening with a matchup at Harvard University. Tip-off at the Crimson's Lavietes Pavilion is set for 7 p.m.

This is the first time in program history that the Mids have been selected to participate in the WBIT. Created by the NCAA in 2023 and first held in 2024, the WBIT is a 32-team postseason invitational tournament that is owned and funded by the NCAA. With the addition of the WBIT, 100 postseason NCAA funded opportunities will be available for women's basketball teams, equal to that of men's basketball through their two events (68 team championship and 32 team NIT).

Navy comes into the WBIT with a 22-8 overall record, including a 16-2 mark that paced the Patriot League in 2025-26. For their success in the regular season, the Mids were recognized with a clean sweep of the Patriot League's major awards as junior guard Zanai Barnett-Gay was selected as both the Patriot League Player and Defensive Player of the Year. Through 30 games so far this season, Barnett-Gay leads the Mids with averages of 16.9 points, 8.5 rebounds, 4.1 assists and 2.8 steals per game. Freshman guard Zoe Mesuch, extended Navy's run of Patriot League Rookies of the Year to three straight seasons as the dynamic sharpshooter knocked down 37.8 percent of her three-point attempts on her way to a 13.7 points per game scoring average. In the quarterfinals of the Patriot League Tournament, Mesuch broke the tournament record of three-pointers in game as she knocked down eight treys against Boston University. The fourth major award for Navy was Patriot League Staff of the Year. Led by sixth-year head coach Tim Taylor, the Mids have completely changed the trajectory of the program as the team has increased its win total each of the past three seasons and reached the postseason for the first time since 2018 with a berth in last year's WNIT. The Mids' regular season title was the fifth in program history and first since 2014.

Harvard heads to the WBIT after an eventful run in the 2026 Ivy League Tournament that saw it upset the second-seeded Columbia Lions in the semifinals by a score of 67-65 in overtime before falling to the top-seeded Princeton Tigers in an ultra competitive contest that saw the two squads tied at 51 late into the fourth quarter before the Tigers pulled away down the stretch for a 63-53 victory. The Crimson have an overall record of 18-11 with a 12-4 mark versus Ivy League opposition. Harvard is led by the trio of Karlee White (15.4 ppg / 5.2 rpg), Abigail Wright (13.1 ppg / 6.1 rpg) and Saniyah Glenn-Bello (11.2 ppg / 3.8 rpg), who combine to score 39.7 of the team's 65.3 points per game.

Thursday will be the third-ever meeting between Navy and Harvard as the two programs meet twice within the calendar year of 2010 and never since. The first matchup in Cambridge on January 2 saw the Crimson victorious by a score of 71-55 before the Mids defended their home court on November 20 as part of the 2010 Navy Classic. The score of that contest was 65-60. 

Harvard is seeded fourth in the regional and the winner of Thursday's contest between the Mids and Crimson will advance to play the winner of the top seed Utah and Eastern Kentucky.