As NC State heads back to UConn for an actual road game, NCAA debacle could repeat
This time, going back to Connecticut, N.C. State can fairly expect a hostile crowd. Sunday’s rematch of last March’s regional final will be an actual home court for the Huskies in Hartford, unlike that epic NCAA tournament double-overtime instant classic played on a “neutral” court in Bridgeport packed to the rafters with UConn fans even as N.C. State was the No. 1 seed.
N.C. State coach Wes Moore asked his UConn counterpart, Geno Auriemma, afterward if that game could count as the first leg of their scheduled home-and-home series; instead, the Wolfpack heads north this weekend with less on the line but very strong hard feelings. The situation is still such a raw spot for not just N.C. State but the ACC that commissioner Jim Phillips, in his state-of-the-league address in October, merely had to allude to it: “I won’t say anything about where they sent N.C. State, either.”
“Last year made us all crazy. It just did,” N.C. State athletic director Boo Corrigan told The News & Observer.
Duke athletic director Nina King served as chairperson of the women’s basketball committee last year and continues to defend the policies and procedures that put top-seeded N.C. State in a road game against Connecticut, even as she has cycled off the committee.
“I said it last year. I’ll say it again this year. Those sites are set several years in advance,” King told The N&O.
Why does it matter this year? Because it could happen again. For the first time, the NCAA women’s basketball tournament will combine regional sites, determining two bids to the Final Four in Seattle and two in Greenville, S.C.
Given South Carolina’s dominance of the women’s game at the moment, it will be shocking if the defending national champions aren’t one of the teams there, only 90 minutes from Columbia, and all-session tickets are on sale now for the six games over four nights.
Even though the Gamecocks would only play a maximum of two of the event’s four nights, local fans buying up tickets now could still lead to a situation similar to what N.C. State went through last year in Bridgeport — not only for South Carolina’s games, which wouldn’t be inappropriate if the Gamecocks are a top seed, but for the games of teams the Gamecocks might play in the Final Four in Dallas.
The No. 1 seed in the regional South Carolina isn’t in could end up facing a very hostile crowd — not much of a reward for earning a top seed. And it’s not outside the realm of possibility that could be N.C. State. Again. Or even, in an ironic twist of fate, Connecticut.
There’s a balance there that the NCAA has yet to find on the women’s side, between going places that guarantee advance ticket sales from rabid fan bases — Bridgeport, Greenville, even Greensboro — and true neutral sites where that’s more of a risk. (Which is why the first and second rounds in the women’s tournament are at home sites ... for now, anyway.) But given the pent-up demand for tickets from N.C. State fans last year, the arena would have been full for that UConn game anywhere within a day’s drive of North Carolina.
“It’s one thing to talk about equity in terms of equal weight rooms, equal gift packs and those types of things, but true equity is going to come when the hotels are the same, when the men walk into the hotel and the women walk into the hotel where they’re staying,” Corrigan said. “Where the games are played. Who has the home-court advantage. You look at the men’s side and I think they’ve done a really good job of being, while regionally, being in a pod (where) it’s not that home team.
“The idea of going in as a No. 1 seed and playing in Connecticut, essentially a home game for them when we’re the No. 1 seed, that to me is equity as well.”
The crowd isn’t the only potential issue in Greenville. There are no questions about Seattle’s Climate Pledge Arena, brand new and one of the finest venues in the country. It will be a tremendous showcase for the women’s game.
But Greenville has twice hosted the first weekend of the men’s tournament, and while the town itself has gotten rave reviews, participants haven’t been as thrilled with the state of 15,000-seat Bon Secours Wellness Arena — built in 1998, dated in appearance and lacking in the kind of backstage space that makes an event like the NCAA tournament run smoothly. King was there in 2022 with Duke’s men’s team and understands the site’s shortcomings.
“That gave me a good chance, experiencing the challenges in Greenville, to sit in the women’s committee room and say, ‘Hey. This is what I experienced. I’m going off the committee, but here’s what you need to be watching for,’ ” King said. “I think it was good for me to be able to tell them ‘Here’s what went wrong.’ Make sure they are prepared for it.”
That might be OK if it were a standard regional, with only four teams participating. But with eight teams in one place — like the first and second rounds of the men’s tournament — the NCAA has opened the door to a potential gender-equity debacle. Women’s coaches and players from outside the SEC — which often holds its conference tournament there — aren’t going to understand it’s just as bad for the men; they’re going to feel shoehorned into an inadequate facility, especially when compared to the other dazzling venue.
“The (men’s and women’s) staffs have coordinated and shared all the information,” NCAA senior president of basketball Dan Gavitt told The N&O. “They’ve been in active discussions with Greenville to proactively address the issues.”
While Gavitt has oversight over both men’s and women’s basketball, vice president for women’s basketball Lynn Holzman directly administers women’s basketball. Holzman referred inquiries to an NCAA spokesperson, who did not respond to a request for comment on the specific issues in Greenville.
In the absence of upgrades to the building itself, there’s only so much of a difference a host can make. Yet the NCAA keeps awarding tournament games to an arena that doesn’t get good reviews from participating teams, in part for political reasons, a reward to the state of South Carolina for no longer flying the Confederate flag outside the statehouse — although one flew from a parking deck next to the arena during the NCAA tournament in 2017, when those games were moved there from Greensboro because of HB2.
“Greenville can do it,” King said. “We’ve been in Greenville before. So it’s good. They are a great, committed group. They know. They know where they messed up.”
This story was originally published November 18, 2022 at 5:50 AM with the headline "As NC State heads back to UConn for an actual road game, NCAA debacle could repeat."
