UTC at Mississippi State
› When: 2:30 p.m. EDT Friday› Where: Humphrey Coliseum; Starkville, Miss.› Records: UTC 24-7; Mississippi State 26-7› TV/Radio: ESPN2/96.1 FM› Series history: Mississippi State leads, 3-2› Last game: Mississippi State won 103-87 on Dec. 30, 1993
Jim Foster is not a fan of the current NCAA women's basketball tournament regional site process.
On the men's side, regional sites are picked before the season and typically are neutral. Sure, a Duke, North Carolina or Kansas is rewarded for a great season by being ushered to a site nearby. Yet on the women's side, the highest-seeded team in the four-team region typically hosts that region. That means at least one home game and maybe two.
Foster's University of Tennessee at Chattanooga team will be playing in one of those regional sites this weekend, as the 12th-seeded Mocs (24-7) will face Mississippi State (26-7) Friday at 2:30 EDT in Starkville, Miss.
The other game at Starkville has Michigan State, the No. 4 seed, facing Belmont.
"Men play neutral sites, relatively speaking," Foster said Tuesday. "We've done a million different things (for our game). Well, let's do a million and one. When was the last time Connecticut lost on their home floor? When was the last time Notre Dame lost on their home floor when they weren't playing Connecticut?
"You want something competitive, something good. They always talk about seats in the bleachers, people and the game growing, but you know what? It's a young game - much younger than the men - and we need to stop comparing and contrasting. The last time I looked, with the amount of money out there, you can do what you want to do."
The game in an opponent's building is nothing new for the Mocs. In the four seasons of senior Alicia Payne's career, they've played NCAA tournament games in College Station, Texas; Lexington, Ky.; Knoxville; and now Starkville. As much as she and her teammates might not like the fact they're playing a road game, they look at Friday as an opportunity to do something that has happened only once in the program's history - win a game in the NCAA tournament.
That game, a 74-69 win over Rutgers, was played in Chattanooga.
"We've played games in front of big crowds my whole career, so we're used to it," Payne said. "We've played big teams and we're used to the big stage.
"I think we're just grateful we get to compete against good teams, with an atmosphere in places where good teams are."
Contact Gene Henley at ghenley@timesfreepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @genehenleytfp.