One of the 3-point lines on the court used for the NCAA Women's basketball regionals in Portland, was "about 9 inches short" of regulation at its apexGetty Images
Connor Sports mismeasuring the 3-point line on one of the NCAA Women’s Tournament courts is the “biggest mistake the Michigan-based company says it has ever made” and has spurred it to "retool its quality-control process," according to Madeline Kenney of the DETROIT NEWS. Connor Sports has been making portable and permanent hardwood sports flooring systems for more than 150 years. Connor Sports Marketing Dir Zach Riberdy in an email said, “We have not had a mistake of this magnitude, on this big of a stage, happen before. There have been errors in the past, but nothing like this.” Connor Sports apologized yesterday after it was “discovered that a measurement on one of the eight NCAA Tournament regional courts was off” (DETROIT NEWS, 4/1). The AP’s Ralph Russo noted one of the 3-point lines on the court used for the NCAA Women's basketball regionals in Portland, was "about 9 inches short" of regulation at its apex. Before last night’s UConn-USC game to determine the final spot in the Final Four, the NCAA said that the line on the court at Moda Center "was corrected.” Russo noted this was “not before five games had been played on it, the first four with the mistake unnoticed.” The misdrawn 3-point line "capped a rocky eight days for the NCAA," which has been working to address "inequities between how it administers the men's and women's tournaments since issues were pointed out during the 2021 single-site events in Indianapolis and San Antonio, respectively" (AP, 4/1).
NOT THE OUTCOME EXPECTED: In L.A., Luca Evans wrote a "truly bizarre" development in an overall-tumultuous women’s basketball tournament for the NCAA, which has seen plenty of on-court magic but has "repeatedly been overshadowed by off-the-court drama." In early rounds, Utah women’s basketball coach Lynne Roberts said that her team “had been the target of racist harassment while in Idaho." In Notre Dame’s loss to Oregon on Friday, controversy brewed as Notre Dame G Hannah Hidalgo was “forced mid-game to remove a nose ring she’d been wearing all season” (L.A. DAILY NEWS, 3/31).
SAME OLD STUFF: In D.C., Sally Jenkins wrote the women’s tournament is "still being treated with a combination of incompetence and indifference by its stager" as the multiple people involved did not care enough to make sure the Sweet 16 court in Portland had the right proportions. Jenkins: “What a debacle. What a humiliating televised spectacle as North Carolina State’s Wes Moore and Texas’s Schaefer walked off distances in their loafers and squinted at those three-point arcs that didn’t match. Imagine Dan Hurley’s reaction in such a situation.” Jenkins added even now, “these things keep happening. Even now, when the NCAA knew this tournament would be watched to an unprecedented degree by record large audiences with newfound passion.” The question of how such a thing as the court foul-up could happen "remains to be answered in terms of specifics.” Jenkins: “Officiating in the women’s game remains inferior. Some of the regional sites and accommodations are less than ideal. Obviously, the oversight in Portland was deficient. All of which raises the question of what else is deficient and inferior in the treatment of the women’s tournament” (WASHINGTON POST, 4/1). THE RINGER’s Steven Ruiz wrote it is a “bit sobering that,” even after that 113-page report, "years of improvements, and an explosion in popularity and viewership for the women’s side of March Madness, players and coaches are still putting up with shit like this” (THE RINGER, 4/1).
