SPOKANE, Wash. — It is the third year that UConn has come to the Pacific Northwest for the NCAA Tournament super regional, and the experience hasn’t gotten any more pleasant.
Ahead of Saturday’s Sweet 16 clash against No. 3 Oklahoma, Huskies coach Geno Auriemma once again railed on the two-site regional concept, a perennial source of frustration for him dating back to UConn’s trip to Seattle in 2023.
“Whoever came up with this super regional stuff — and I know who they are — ruined the game. They did. They ruined the game,” Auriemma said. “Half the country has no chance to get to a game in person. But you’re making billions off of TV. Well, actually you’re not, that would be the men’s tournament. So, yeah there’s a lot of issues that they need to fix.”
The NCAA switched from four regional sites to two in 2023 in response to declining crowd sizes. The crowds have since grown, but with more teams at fewer sites, some teams have complained about logistics like sharing court space, finding enough hotels and the travel schedule.
The Huskies had a one-hour practice at 8 a.m. Friday to accommodate the four Spokane 4 Regional teams who have to practice in the arena and an additional four Spokane 1 teams that need shootaround time before their games tonight. On Saturday, they’ll have an even earlier shootaround with the games tipping off earlier in the day.
“In a normal world, run by normal people, there would only be four teams here,” Auriemma said. “Which means there would be no games today, the games would be tomorrow. Which means we wouldn’t have to get up at 6 a.m. to have an 8 o’clock practice here this morning for an hour. Which means we wouldn’t have to get up at 5 a.m. to have a 7:30 shootaround for half an hour. Takes us longer to get through security than to actually be on the court?”
The super regional presents an additional problem with travel, though mostly for the winning teams in Spokane, who will have to make a cross-country trek (the second one in a week if UConn wins) to get to Tampa, Fla. for the Final Four. The women’s tournament changed its Final Four days from Sunday-Tuesday to Friday-Sunday in 2017, which gives the teams who play in the Elite Eight on Monday even less time to prepare for the national semifinal. On the men’s side, the Elite Eight concludes Sunday before the Saturday Final Four.
The travel could theoretically be simplified if the tournament sites were more central, but that has not been the case during the first three years of the super-regional era. None of the teams who have emerged from the West super regional have won the national championship over the last two seasons, and only Iowa in 2023 made the national title game, though the sample size is far too small to draw any conclusions.
This format is locked in through 2028. The 2026 sites of Sacramento, Calif. and Fort Worth, Texas leading to a Phoenix Final Four are more geographically convenient, but the regional winners in Las Vegas in 2027 and Portland, Ore. in 2028 will once again have long travel to Columbus, Ohio and Indianapolis, respectively, for the next round.
(Photo: David Butler II / Imagn Images)
