NCAA Women's bball tourney 2003 first-round sites.

According to the above link, the NCAA has approved sixteen sites to serve as first-round hosts for the 2003 tournament. It's at the very bottom of the page.

I hope this is an April Fool's Day joke--what will happen if one of the teams that play at one of those sites has a bad year and shouldn't even play in the tourney? How can the NCAA justify having the sites selected already?

I love my Purdue Boilermakers women's team, but at least let them get through an entire season before deciding that they're host-worthy...

SteveIN

The women are finally branching out and trying to play the first two rounds at "neutral" sites. This has been a big contention for many years. The number of early upsets is pretty limited (typically) and the higher seeded schools (allowed to host the first two rounds) have a very high success rate at making it to the sweet 16.

They will still try and put teams of regional interest into each of the sixteen sites. Also, the sites they have selected are all proven in terms of attendance for women's basketball events. Most of the sites are associated with women's power teams who consistently sell out the regular season. Built-in fan support, even if the home team does not make it into the site.

I think the tournament will get more interesting if fewer teams have a leg up by playing at home. This, however, is only a small step in that direction. Most of the sites selected will be playing at the home arenas of schools like Tennessee, Connecticut, La Tech, Oklahoma, etc. There will still be a number of schools enjoying home cooking in the early rounds. It just isn't guaranteed anymore.