CLEVELAND — The overall No. 1 seed in the NCAA women’s basketball tournament will get preferential treatment moving forward, a response to South Carolina coach Dawn Staley’s concerns and criticism.
The Division I Women’s Basketball Committee voted unanimously Friday to place the tourney’s top seed in a regional pod with game days on Friday and Sunday, ensuring the most rest possible for the No. 1 seed between the regional final and the Final Four.
Staley approached broadcast partner ESPN and NCAA officials about the issue in May at the Southeastern Conference’s spring meetings in Destin, Florida.
“It’s not that I’m a sore loser,” Staley said. “I think it’s great that almost 10 million viewers watched our sport. But you also have to break things down like you do with film. I broke our tournament down, where we were placed and things that we did over the course of a season. … We were the No. 1 overall seed. If there were going to be some advantages and benefits, it should have come to us.”
At the most recent NCAA tournament, eventual national champion LSU and runner-up Iowa both had an extra day of rest compared to South Carolina, which took its first and only loss of the 2022-23 season when it fell to Iowa at the Final Four in Dallas. LSU beat Virginia Tech, which also had one less day to prepare.
“A key learning from our first season with the new format was we should reward the No. 1 overall seeded team by allowing that team the most possible rest time between the regional final and the Women’s Final Four,” said Lisa Peterson, chair of the committee and senior associate commissioner for sports management with the Pac-12 Conference. “We made that decision unanimously.”
The 2024 Women’s Final Four will be played April 5 and 7 at Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse in Cleveland.
NIT shakes up tradition
INDIANAPOLIS — Regular-season conference champions are no longer guaranteed spots in the National Invitation Tournament, a change that disappointed at least a couple mid-major conferences.
The NIT Board of Managers tweaked its qualifying rules for its postseason men’s basketball tournament Friday, saying regular-season champs who do not win their conference tournament and are not otherwise selected to the 68-team NCAA tournament will not receive an automatic bid to the NIT.
Instead, the NIT will guarantee two teams — based on the NET rankings — from each of the six major conferences for men’s basketball: the Atlantic Coast, Big East, Big 12, Big Ten, Pac-12 and Southeastern.
The top two teams in the NET rankings not qualifying for the NCAA field from each conference, regardless of win-loss record, will be selected. Additionally, the 12 teams automatically selected will be guaranteed the opportunity to host a game in the first round of the NIT.
The decision drew complaints from the commissioners of the Mid-American and Big Sky conferences.
“I was surprised and disappointed in the action announced today by the NIT Board of Managers, approximately one week prior to the start of the 2023-24 season,” MAC commissioner Jon Steinbrecher said in a statement released Friday. “To make such a substantive change to the NIT structure without providing a satisfactory explanation or building the foundation for such a change is troubling and leaves student-athletes, coaches and fans in a state of uncertainty.”
Steinbrecher said the change will prompt him to “focus even more on the discussion around the possible expansion of the NCAA Tournament.”
Big Sky commissioner Tom Wistrcill echoed Steinbrecher’s sentiment.
“Disappointed and concerns in the decision and the timing,” Wistrcill said.