The NCAA Women’s Tournament resumes Friday with region semifinal games in Albany, N.Y., and Portland, Ore., and there is a belief around the sport that it “may be time to rethink the process in which the host cities are selected to better capitalize on the game’s popularity,” according to Kareem Copeland of the WASHINGTON POST. The regional sites are booked the next two years, with Birmingham, Ala. and Spokane, Wash. in 2025 and Fort Worth and Sacramento in 2026. The Final Four is scheduled through 2031. The NCAA began using a two-site format for its women’s basketball regionals last year after the success of San Antonio as a single-site host in 2021 during the pandemic. Division I women’s basketball committee Chair Lisa Peterson said that the condensed regionals “feel like mini-Final Fours with six games and eight fan bases.” Location has “been a big part of the planning and scheduling process,” and the committee has tried to “hold regionals in areas where there was a high interest in the women’s game to help ticket sales.” Peterson noted that the increased popularity nationwide has “provided more flexibility moving forward.” Albany, for example, has hosted both men’s and women’s tournament games in different years, but it is not “the easiest location to travel to, particularly from the West Coast.” It also does not “have the entertainment options of larger markets.” There have also been discussions about “changing the format" of the opening rounds of the tournament, but that has “gained less traction.” The men’s tournament features neutral host cities for the first and second rounds, while the women still play the first two rounds on the campuses of the top four seeds in each region. That “ensures stronger crowds” yet also “provides a significant home-court advantage.” Still, the sentiment this week among coaches in Albany “seemed to support the current format” (WASHINGTON POST, 3/29).
IN NEED OF CHANGE: In Spokane, Greg Lee wrote “don’t count” Texas women’s basketball coach Vic Schaefer as a fan of the new regional format implemented last year. Lee noted Schaefer is “disappointed” that the NCAA abandoned the four geographical regionals to "clump them into two sites." He said that Texas “should be playing in a regional in the Midwest, not the Rose City” and he thinks that the Longhorns’ matchup against fourth-seeded Gonzaga “is a home game” for the Zags. Schaefer said, “It took us 4 hours and 48 minutes to get here yesterday. That’s wheels up to wheels down. I’m pretty sure it took them under an hour.” He also “questions the value of a top seed," saying, “It kind of defeats the purpose, to be quite honest.” Reportedly the new regional format “will continue for three more years and then be re-evaluated.” Schaefer: “We’ve got to be who we are and realize we’ve been through this now. It seems that that’s the approach we’re trying to take, to be on a neutral floor for the teams that need to be rewarded.” Lee noted Schaefer “wants to go back to four geographically located regionals” (Spokane SPOKESMAN-REVIEW, 3/28).
MORE VARIABLES: The AP’s Aaron Beard wrote the logistical headaches are part of the equation for a tournament has “long relied on host schools for opening-round games and the better attendance that comes with it.” Yet with those sites not determined until days ahead of time compared to years on the men’s side, there are “more variables such as limited hotel availability displacing teams from the local scene” -- an “issue highlighted by Utah reporting that it experienced a series of hate crimes in Idaho while staying 30 miles from its games in Spokane, Washington, before changing hotels.” That is a “balance facing the NCAA” as it evaluates the next steps for the tournament at a time of unprecedented growth and popularity for the sport. Beard wrote as far as host sites, it is a “tricky balance, starting with the boost of stronger attendance for home-standing teams compared to playing at neutral sites to start the tournament." This year, the opening two rounds “drew a record” 292,456 fans, surpassing last year’s previous high by more than 60,000 (AP, 3/28).
