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In today's Blade Dave Hackenberg reports beginning next season the top 16 seeded teams in the women's NCAA tournament will host, yes host, 1st round games. Thus eliminating neutral sites at the onset of the tournament. So I guess what this means if you are a 1-4 seed you play on your own floor in the first game. This will further remove teams like BG, or the MAC champ from making a run. The losing battle continues downward.

In the Blade article the NCAA rep said "This is not going backwards. It's trying something new to enhance women's basketball."

Not true. Prior to 1995 they did not split the teams into groups of four, all 1st and 2nd round games were individual games held at the higher seeds home court. This was done to help ticket sales and also reward the higher seeds.

In 1995, probably to reduce travel expense and travel time, they brought 4 teams in to one sight under the format we are familiar with today. Again, to help ticket sales, the highest seeds got to host the three game sets.

In 2005 they apparently felt the popularity of the women's game had progressed to the point that it could support the neutral site format.

This is a step backwards and I believe it's a money grab and a power grab for the major conferences.

Would more tickets have been sold if Notre Dame had hosted this weekend's games. Yes. Would it have put more money in the NCAA's pocket and in Notre Dame's pocket. Yes.

Would it have enhanced women's basketball? No. It shrinks women's basketball, concentrating it in the same markets virtually every year, Notre Dame, U Conn, Duke, North Carolina, Tennessee, etc... The women's game was enhanced in Toledo this year and Bowling Green before it but not anymore.

On the men's side Mid-major basketball has caught up to the big boys with the likes of Wichita State, Florida Gulf Coast, Butler and the like making deep runs into the tournament. The women's side is catching up as well and it has the Majors scared to death.

BigGibber wrote:In the Blade article the NCAA rep said "This is not going backwards. It's trying something new to enhance women's basketball."

Not true. Prior to 1995 they did not split the teams into groups of four, all 1st and 2nd round games were individual games held at the higher seeds home court. This was done to help ticket sales and also reward the higher seeds.

In 1995, probably to reduce travel expense and travel time, they brought 4 teams in to one sight under the format we are familiar with today. Again, to help ticket sales, the highest seeds got to host the three game sets.

In 2005 they apparently felt the popularity of the women's game had progressed to the point that it could support the neutral site format.

This is a step backwards and I believe it's a money grab and a power grab for the major conferences.

Would more tickets have been sold if Notre Dame had hosted this weekend's games. Yes. Would it have put more money in the NCAA's pocket and in Notre Dame's pocket. Yes.

Would it have enhanced women's basketball? No. It shrinks women's basketball, concentrating it in the same markets virtually every year, Notre Dame, U Conn, Duke, North Carolina, Tennessee, etc... The women's game was enhanced in Toledo this year and Bowling Green before it but not anymore.

On the men's side Mid-major basketball has caught up to the big boys with the likes of Wichita State, Florida Gulf Coast, Butler and the like making deep runs into the tournament. The women's side is catching up as well and it has the Majors scared to death.

Maybe I'm missing something here but didn't Purdue play UA at home? And I saw Tennessee at home the other nite, and UConn as usual got home floor. No, schools like UT and BG wouldn't get to host teams and THAT'S the bummer. So the NCAA doesn't know what the H... It's doing. At least the guys have to travel, even teams like MSU.( to Seattle I think) had to go elsewhere to play. The higher seeds usually have to travel less (see Syracuse to Buffalo) but I don't recall any playing at home per SE.

If the NCAA wants to improve women's basketball, do something so that Connecticut and Notre Dame don't go undefeated nearly every year for a decade...winning every game by 20, 30 and 40 points.

Outside of Stanford and a few years of Baylor and their freak athlete, no one recently has had a prayer.

Redwingtom wrote:If the NCAA wants to improve women's basketball, do something so that Connecticut and Notre Dame don't go undefeated nearly every year for a decade...winning every game by 20, 30 and 40 points.

Outside of Stanford and a few years of Baylor and their freak athlete, no one recently has had a prayer.

What would you do?

Tell them they can no longer recruit high school All-Americans?



Notre Dame is hosting the Sweet 16 and Elite 8 this weekend, so they would not have been eligible to host the first/second round games.

Also, surprised no one commented about Jen's remarks that the NCAA should expand the women's tourney to 68 like the men. THIS is where the university should make an offer to the NCAA to be the host for play-in games for the women (just like Dayton is for the men).

transfer2BGSU wrote:
Notre Dame is hosting the Sweet 16 and Elite 8 this weekend, so they would not have been eligible to host the first/second round games.

They beat Baylor last night in front of a screaming crowd of their own home fans. Like someone said before, it's patently unfair and doesn't grow the sport one iota.

All Regional sites go back to neutral courts in 2015. The top 16 seeds will host first and second round games. I don't like this at all. Every game in the NCAA tournament should ideally be on a neutral court. But that is not going to happen.

While this isn't ideal, neutral court games would be a disaster for the first and second rounds. The teams would be playing in empty arenas.

mscarn wrote:

transfer2BGSU wrote:
Notre Dame is hosting the Sweet 16 and Elite 8 this weekend, so they would not have been eligible to host the first/second round games.

They beat Baylor last night in front of a screaming crowd of their own home fans. Like someone said before, it's patently unfair and doesn't grow the sport one iota.

Am I missing something? ND put that bid in to host the regionals and were selected a few years ago. It's not guaranteed that they would have been playing in their own stadium.

The top seeds used to host the first and second rounds at home, which is what it sounds like is going to happen again.

How convenient of the committee to place them on their home floor should the seeds hold when they had three other regions to choose from. Just a random coincidence that I'm sure Baylor appreciated.

ESPN also started running promos for a UConn/ND matchup before the seedings were announced. They are confining women's basketball to a handful of power schools they think they can get ratings from and royally screwing the rest.

mscarn wrote:How convenient of the committee to place them on their home floor should the seeds hold when they had three other regions to choose from. Just a random coincidence that I'm sure Baylor appreciated.

This isnt men's basketball though, where if you are hosting you can't play on your home court. That is only a men's basketball tournament rule, and thats what happens when women's basketball overall has an image and attendance issue. Its the same in hockey, if you make the tournament and are hosting you get to play at your host site. Whoever that two seed was knew what was coming. Women's basketball is no where near as popular as men's basketball so it has two choices, be fair and no one shows up and the sport gets embarrassed on national TV, or be unfair but have people in the sits for games. Its really damned if you do damned if you don't.

The Regional sites were Louisville, Notre Dame, Lincoln (Nebraska), and Stanford. If these teams were selected for the NCAA Tournament, they had to placed in the regional they were hosting. No coincidence involved. Again this will not happen in the future. As to the first & second rounds, the only reason it is changing is that too many teams were having to play games on higher seeds home courts. The big girls didn't like that. They say it is for attendance purposes, but I'm not so sure about that. So this procedure will prevent BGSU and Toledo from ever hosting again. From all accounts both BG and Toledo ran great tournament sites. As a fan of women's college basketball, I'd rather see a mostly full smaller arena than have a large arena less than half full. But the traditional powers have won for the present time. Hopefully some day parity will come to women's college basketball.

Everything is done for attendance purposes. It's bad for the game to have an empty or even half filled arena. Toledo and BG got bailed out by getting Notre Dame and Baylor/Ohio State respectively to play at their sites. Without those teams, the arenas would have been half full at best.

UCLA and Washington, like Toledo, were hosts that did not make the tournament this season. With a lack of reasonably close schools, UCLA and Washington's attendance was atrocious (UCLA - 1941 and 973, Washington - 2214 and 1664) .

This move is being made to avoid this happening again. Their new model will ensure all sites will have a home team in it. It's smart business for a sport with a fan base that, as a whole, does not have the resources to travel, to maximize attendance.

I understand why they are doing it. But I guess I have a couple of thoughts about it. Yes, you will always have a home team. But will the home team fans show for the other game? If the home team loses in the first round will their fans come the the second round game? Both of these could certainly lower attendance. If the NCAA is looking to maximize the student-athlete experience, then I hope this works. It was done earlier in the history of the Tournament and was changed. You will probably see less "upsets", at least for a while.

My dad is a Notre Dame alum and my bro-in-law is a prof there so I can speak from experience. The questions asked above about the home fans attending the other game - YES. At least in South Bend, the women's team is really supported by the "townies" and when ND hosted first Round previously, there were large crowds for all the games. I think if you make it affordable and fun, it works.

Sucks for the smaller teams but we don't have "fairness" anywhere else. I'm used to it