TAMPA, Fla. — The complaints couldn’t be ignored. From Birmingham, Alabama, to Spokane, Washington, final weekend, a few of the most distinguished coaches in girls’s school basketball took intention on the NCAA’s fairly-new double-regional format.
First to loudly voice his disapproval with the format — the place eight groups play a complete of six video games within the span of 4 days in a single area — was UConn coach Geno Auriemma, the 71-year-old Corridor of Famer who owns 11 nationwide championships. Auriemma’s protests had been centered across the availability of courtroom time for practices and shootarounds, which he argues impacts relaxation and restoration time for gamers.
“In a traditional world, run by regular folks, there would solely be 4 groups right here,” Auriemma stated final Sunday. “Which suggests we wouldn’t must rise up at 6 a.m. to have an 8 o’clock follow right here this morning for an hour. Which suggests we wouldn’t must rise up at 5 a.m. to have a 7:30 shootaround for half-an-hour. Takes us longer to get via safety than to really be on the courtroom, okay?”
He continued: “The blokes, who don’t know shit about shit — in accordance with loads of girls’s basketball folks — they end Sunday after which they’ve Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, they usually play Saturday. However there’s lots of people within the girls’s basketball group that suppose they’re smarter than that. So whoever got here up with this tremendous regional stuff — and I do know who they’re — ruined the sport. They did. They ruined the sport. Half the nation has no likelihood to get to a sport in particular person. However you’re making billions off of TV. Nicely, really you’re not, that might be the lads’s event. So, yeah, there’s loads of points that they should repair.”
LSU’s Kim Mulkey and Vic Schaefer of Texas had been among the many coaches who voiced their displeasure with the format too.
Nonetheless, these coaches and followers of the game shouldn’t anticipate the double-regional system to finish any time quickly. NCAA President Charlie Baker appears to be a fan of the format and stated it might be troublesome to deviate from it within the speedy future.
“It might be actually arduous to alter it at this level with out rebidding the entire thing,” Baker instructed reporters on Friday throughout a spontaneous availability within the media workroom in Tampa’s Amalie Enviornment, which is internet hosting the Last 4 this 12 months.
The NCAA switched the second weekend format of the event to only two regional websites as a substitute of 4 after the 2022 event, which had regionals in Greensboro, North Carolina; Bridgeport, Connecticut; Wichita, Kansas and Spokane, Washington. Apart from the Bridgeport regional — performed in No. 2 seed UConn’s yard — no regional ultimate that 12 months drew greater than 7,800 followers.
In 2023, the NCAA pivoted to 2 websites in Greenville, South Carolina and Seattle, Washington. The bottom attended regional ultimate was LSU vs. Miami in Greenville, drawing 7,988 followers. Two of the opposite regional finals drew greater than 11,000 followers. Final 12 months, each regional ultimate video games in Albany, New York garnered greater than 13,000 followers. This 12 months’s regional finals in Birmingham and Spokane averaged 10,716 followers throughout 4 video games.
“The principle motive the ladies’s basketball committee went to the 2 websites was to fill the stands and create a greater expertise for the youngsters and to drive attendance,” Baker stated. “And so they completed each of these goals. Attendance numbers have been a lot greater the previous few years, and the youngsters actually take pleasure in a packed home.”
Presently, the double-regional format is about via 2028 with websites already booked. The 2026 regionals might be in Fort Value, Texas and Sacramento, California, the 2027 video games might be in Philadelphia and Las Vegas, and the 2028 regionals might be hosted by Washington, D.C. and Portland, Oregon.
“There are loads of coaches that do (just like the double regional format),” Baker stated. “Ask Daybreak Staley about it. See what she says.”
Baker is true. Whereas the Gamecocks’ coach did lament the shootaround and follow instances, she — like Baker does — appears to consider that the double-regional is nice for followers of the game.
“You don’t get a shootaround time at an affordable hour. Apart from that, I imply, I really like the 2 areas. I like having seven different groups that’s attempting to advance to the Elite Eight and advance to the Last 4 proper in a single place,” Staley stated. “I do suppose it permits our followers, followers of girls’s basketball, to gravitate to 1 spot. I do know the attendance might be up due to it. So, backside line, we have to drive income as a lot as potential.”
Certainly, scores for the ladies’s NCAA Event are higher than ever. After the Iowa vs. LSU Elite Eight conflict and Iowa vs. South Carolina nationwide title sport shattered viewership data final season, the viewers has remained whilst Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese have moved on to the WNBA.
This 12 months’s Elite Eight was the second most-watched on-record because the 4 video games averaged 2.9 million viewers, which is up 34 p.c from the 2023 event. LSU vs. UCLA peaked at 4.4 million viewers. That’s excellent news for girls’s basketball groups within the event, who are incomes items for the primary time this 12 months.
Concerning the current attendance figures and people viewership stats, LSU’s Kim Mulkey believes the NCAA moved into the double-regional system too rapidly and will nonetheless thrive in the identical approach in a standard four-site format.
“We offered our soul too early. This sport has gotten higher. And, man, in the event you nonetheless had 4 regionals, are you able to think about the attendance? I do know our fan base. They will’t afford to return to Spokane. However they may if it was a bit of bit nearer,” stated Mulkey, the winner of 4 nationwide championships. “We have to repair this. We don’t have to attend till the contract’s up. Let the folks maintain their tremendous regionals. Simply go add two now. I’ve by no means ever been one to consider you can’t work issues out if it’s higher for the sport.”
Baker added that the ladies’s basketball committee talks in regards to the regional format on a “fairly common foundation” and stated the subject can be broached once more when the committee meets after the Last 4.
“In the event that they consider there’s an possibility that might create the identical fan and scholar athlete expertise, I’m certain (the committee will) take that into consideration,” Baker stated.
Texas coach Vic Schaefer — who turned simply the fifth coach within the sport’s historical past this week to take two totally different applications to the Last 4 — has been grumbling in regards to the format ever because it started.
“Appears to me like there may very well be higher group and higher planning throughout. This isn’t it, as I’d inform my youngsters,” Schaefer stated. “However (Mulkey and Auriemma) are proper. You bought to get (the gamers) up at 7 within the morning for a 30-minute shootaround at crucial time of the 12 months. There’s eight groups right here, it’s problematic.”