Wichita NCAA Women's Tournament games announced

The field is set for the first and second round Women's NCAA Tournament games in Wichita.

Green Bay, Arkansas-Little Rock, Michigan State and Northern Iowa will play early next week at Intrust Bank Arena.

Green Bay and Arkansas-Little Rock play at 4:20 p.m. Sunday and Michigan State will take on UNI about 6:50 p.m.. The winners will play each other Tuesday.

Intrust Bank Arena General Manager A.J. Boleski was excited to learn teams from the Midwest will be coming to Wichita .

"I think it's so much easier to travel from Arkansas-Little Rock or Green Bay than it is from anywhere on the east coast," he said.

Boleski and his staff will be busy the rest of this week making sure Intrust Bank Arena is ready for three basketball games and thousands of basketball fans.

"We're working on getting the court set up right now," Boleski said. "We had some wrestling and hockey over the weekend, so now we're going to basketball."

Wichita State University is the official host university for the tournament games. Athletic Director Eric Sexton said, while there's been a lot of work put into getting the tournament here, the real work is just beginning.

It will be a busy week for anybody involved with Shocker Athletics. In addition to serving as the host of the first and second round NCAA women's games, Wichita State will host at least one men's NIT game when the Shockers play Nebraska Wednesday evening at Koch Arena.

"We have great partners with the Intrust Bank Arena and their staff to help us balance that out," Sexton said. "We have a lot of moving parts, a lot of Shocker athletics rolling into a lot of great NCAA basketball coming in at the end of the week."

John Rolfe, CEO of Go Wichita Convention and Visitors Bureau, is excited for the big basketball week. He's hoping basketball fans coming to town to support their teams fall in love with the city and decide to return.

"With all the wonderful amenities that surround the Intrust Bank Arena, I think the fans, our locals - certainly our visitors - they'll all have a great time here and they'll spend lots of money and have a significant economic impact here on the city," Rolfe said.

Boleski said he is hoping fans and NCAA officials are impressed with Wichita and Intrust Bank Arena so the arena will awarded future tournament games for both women's and men's March Madness.

"This is an opportunity to showcase ourselves as a sporting venue and we're very much looking forward to that," he said. "It will hopefully lead to other NCAA events in the future."

Boleski said the arena had a great experience with a December basketball game between Wichita State and Tulsa and that it has proven to be a great sports environment.

Tickets for the NIT game between WSU and Nebraska are available at the Koch Arena box office or at www.goshockers.com. NCAA Women's Tournament tickets can be purchased at www.selectaseat.com or at the Intrust Bank Arena box office.