While watching ESPN I saw that they have names for the brackets in NCAA women’s basketball. Instead of using direction like the men’s bracket they name the regions after cities. There is a Trenton region and a Berkeley region. I know for certain that no games are being played in Trenton and no schools involved are in Trenton. I don’t know about the other regions. Why are they doing this? What was wrong with saying Northeast like on the men’s side?
Actually, games will be played there. The 3rd and 4th rounds will be played in the city that portion of the bracket is named after. Then, whoever wins the Trenton, Berkeley, Raleigh, and Oklahoma City regions will go to the Final Four. Mildly bumbling response there, at least it feels that way, but I think that explains why they name the regions after cities and points out that they do have games there.
A fews years back, the NCAA Mens tournament did the same exact then. I thought it was confusing then. Personally, I like the Directional locations versus the city locations. {East (Trenton), South (Raleigh), Midwest (Oklahoma City), and West (Berkely) brackets.}
Also, I believe the womens championship should start in late February. It is hard for the women to compete against men at any time but they simply have no chance against Mens B-Ball March Madness, Spring Training and the NBA and NHL are in the stretch run for in their regular season and Golf is starting to rev to the Masters. There is a lull in the world of sports after the Super Bowl. The only big sporting event of note in the time frame is the Daytona 500 and I think Womens B-Ball would be better off being the opening act of March Madness with the Championship game on the day after “Selection Sunday”
Thanks for that. I see it now. I didn’t realize they are playing at the Sovereign Bank Arena in Trenton. No basketball team on any level plays there regularly. I wasn’t aware that they ever have basketball there but I see now that they have hosted a few tournaments. Its a small arena far away from any supporting base of women’s college basketball. Seems like a weird choice.
I’m sure there was money involved, but that aside I would guess they are trying to find a “neutral” court somewhere near UConn. They generally do something like that for the number one seeds. The only team that didn’t get that this year is Duke. Assuming they make the Sweet 16 they have to travel to Berkeley and play Stanford(theoretically) in the Elite Eight. Maybe that was the NCAA’s way of making not giving Stanford a one seed okay. Who knows, between money and TV(aka money) the NCAA does a lot of odd things.
The locations are actually chosen years in advance. There was no way for the NCAA to KNOW that UConn would be number one seed. I purchased my ticket package for this year’s women’s tournament games at about this time last year.
If I am remembering correctly, the Men’s tournament has each location “hosted” by a school, i.e. Ohio State hosts at Nationwide Arena in Columbus (OSU’s arena is used for state high school wrestling and basketball championships in March). The men’s teams cannot play at a site hosted by their school. The Final Four site is independent of a school. This leads to weird situations in which OSU has been into a bracket labeled West, played in Kentucky, and actually “hosted” games.
The Women’s tournament is apparently hosted by cities, and not necessarily schools. Columbus lobbied the NCAA for being included in the women’s site rotation, and is hosting the first two rounds for part of the Berkley bracket. Thus, Trenton can be a host without any school relationship. The criteria appear to be hotel rooms and facilities. The upside is that women’s teams can play in the city in which they are based, i.e. Ohio State played here in Columbus this weekend and tonight. A nice bonus for some teams in an under appreciated sport.
In 2004 on the Men’s side, when the committee seeded the #1 seeds for the first time, they dropped the “East/South/Midwest/West” regional names for the names of the host cities of the regional semifinals and finals. The Women’s tournament did the same thing in 2005. In 2007 the men’s tournament returned to the old directional names. The women’s tournament never went back to the using the old regional names for whatever reason.
One reason may be that it’s thus easier to have Los Angeles hosting first-round and second-round games in the Trenton Region, East Lansing the Berkeley region, Albuquerque the Raleigh Region, and Piscataway (NJ) the Oklahoma City Region, to name just four examples from this current tournament.
In at least two cases, Rutgers and Maryland, both teams get to play their first two games on their home court (I didn’t check all of them). It may be a way to ensure that the arena is full.
Well, Boise hosted “East” regional games in the Men’s tournament this weekend, so the Men’s tournament simply ignores geography sometime for the sake of having the old comfortable regional names…
However, I know that OKC pushed hard for a bid this year in the expectation that a Paris led OU team would be a top seed, and the Rhinos are indeed the top seed for that region - and should get a pretty good crowd at the Ford Center.
For the men there is a host school for every site - but it doesn’t have to be the home court of that school. I assume that is also true for women so a school nearby Trenton would be the host school for that site.