Ahhh, it's never too early to talk college basketball: The WNIT released its preseason field today and it looks to provide good early tests for Baylor, Hartford, Stanford, St. John's and the "This Program Under Renovation" nominee of the year, Purdue.

Other participants include Belmont, BYU, Dartmouth (which gives me an excuse to remind everyone of the fabulous SportsProf blog entry of March 2006: Angie Soriaga for President) High Point, Hofstra, Idaho State, Iona, Loyola-Marymount, NC State, North Texas and Wichita State.

Currently organzied by Triple Crown Sports, the women's NIT has a long, though somewhat obscure, history that you can read about here and will, as it grows, need to tend to its future. For a long time, it was nigh on impossible to find out results, much less who was playing in the tournament, but the WNIT's workmanlike website now lists past participants and winners of the preseason and postseason events.