UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, RIVERSIDE

A year into her tenure as UC Riverside’s athletic director, Tamica Smith Jones has been named to the NCAA Division I Women’s Basketball Championship Sport Committee, for a five-year term beginning next season. She will become the second UCR athletic director to be part of the committee that picks the field for the NCAA tournament. Stan Morrison served a five-year term on the men’s basketball committee from 2007 through 2011. Smith Jones’ inclusion on the women’s committee, which the school announced Tuesday morning, could be interpreted as equally an indication of her rising stature among athletic directors and the UCR program’s stature in women’s basketball circles. The school has reached the NCAA Tournament three times in 11 seasons (2006, 2007, 2010) under John Margaritis and this past season won the Big West regular season championship and went 23-9 with essentially a seven-woman roster down the stretch. –The Press Enterprise– Read More