Spokane, Washington – This is the third year that Uconn came to the North West Pacific for the NCAA Super Regional Tournament, and the experience has not become more pleasant.
Before the Sweet 16 on Saturday against N ° 3 of Oklahoma, the coach of the Huskies Geno Auriemma again made the heel of the regional concept of two sites, a perennial source of frustration for him dating from the trip from Uconn to Seattle in 2023.
“The one who found this super regional thing – and I know who they are – ruined the game. They did it. They ruined the game,” said Auriemma. “Half of the country has no chance of arriving at a game in person. But you make billions of television. Well, in fact, you are not, it would be the male tournament. So, yes, there are a lot of problems that they have to solve.”
The NCAA went from four regional sites to two in 2023 in response to the decrease in the size of the crowds. The crowd has since grown up, but with more teams on fewer sites, some teams have complained about logistics such as sharing the judicial space, the search for enough hotels and the travel calendar.
The Huskies had a training session from one hour to 8 am on Friday to welcome the four regional teams of Spokane 4 who have to train in the arena and four other Spokane 1 teams who need a time to shoot before their games this evening. On Saturday, they will have an even earlier shot with the matches that go earlier during the day.
“In a normal world, led by normal people, there are only four teams here,” said Auriemma. “This means that there would be no games today, the matches would be tomorrow. This means that we would not have to get up at 6 am to have a practice of 8 am this morning for an hour. Which means that we would not have to get up at 5 am to have a shot at 7:30 am for half an hour.
The Super Regional presents an additional problem with travel, but especially for the winning teams of Spokane, who will have to hike cross-country (the second over a week if Uconn wins) to go to Tampa, Florida for the Final Four. The women’s tournament has changed its last four days from Sunday-dimanche to Friday to Sunday in 2017, which gives teams that play in the elite eight on Monday less time to prepare for the national semi-final. On the men’s side, the Elite Eight ends on Sunday before the Final Four on Saturday.
The trip could theoretically be simplified if the tournament sites were more central, but this was not the case during the first three years of the super-regional era. None of the teams that have not left the West Super Regional won the national championship in the past two seasons, and only Iowa in 2023 has made the national match, although the sample size is much too small to draw conclusions.
This format is locked up until 2028. The 2026 sites of Sacramento, California and Fort Worth, Texas, leading to a final Phoenix Four, are more efficient geographically, but the regional winners in Las Vegas in 2027 and Portland, Oregon, in 2028, will once again have long trip to Columbus, Ohio and Indianapolis, respectively.
(Photo: David Butler II / Imagn Images)
