Bluder's Bunch

[BradBanks02]

Gonzaga's next game, next 2 if they win, are also in Spokane.

 

[tm3308]

I'd swear Keith Garber and the staff at the Wayne County Hospital dropped you when you were born.

The Elite Eight games ARE NEVER played on a teams home court. This practice was stopped in the late 90's. And, yes the men are FORCED to play at neutral sites. Here's a little comparison for you - games played tonight at neutral sites and their attendance:

Oklahoma vs Miami @ Charlottesville, VA 1362 (note the Sunday session had 3763 people, making the average game attendance for three games 1708 people)
Georgia vs Florida State @ Auburn, AL 2214
Green Bay vs Michigan State @ Wichita, KS 4242 (GB travels VERY well, and Wichita has never hosted a women's NCAA tourney before)
Rutgers vs Texas A&M @ Shrevport, LA 2146 (4 hour drive from College Station)
Average attendance at neutral sites - 2491 people

Games played on a home teams floor:
Louisville @ Xavier 4065
Georgetown @ Maryland 4493
Purdue @ UConn 5729
West Virginia @ Baylor 8436
Average attendance - 5680 people

How many times can it be told - the women's tourney has ALWAYS played their first and second round games on someone's home floor. The coaches VOTED to keep it this way because they want to play in front of a crowd, and it's a reward for earning a top seed (just like in the men's tourney with Duke in Charlotte, OSU in Cleveland, KS in Tulsa, and Pitt in DC, and you'll notice the same thing for the # 2 seeds UNC in Charlotte, Florida in Tampa, Notre Dame in Chicago, and SDSU in Tuscon). You tell me how fun would it be to play in front of 1362 fans in an arena that hold 14356 people? You can get that many in the Wayne HS gymnasium. Even the few years when the women did the POD system, the host institution still got to play at the site they were hosting.

Take a look at the scores from last night and tonight:
DePaul beat Penn State in University Park - PSU # 6 seed / DePaul # 3
Louisville beat Xavier in Cincinnati - LV # 7 seed / Xavier # 2
Georgetown beat Maryland in College Park - GTown # 5 / MD # 4

The bids for 2011 were done in 2009, the NCAA picked 16 sites, and those hosted. Iowa has hosted eight times, but people seem to forget that fact.

Having followed the Iowa women for 25 years, I been there for a lot of highs (22k + vs. Ohio State in 1985 in CHA, the final four in 1993 where we were this close to playing for a national championship, to the Angie Lee years where we just plain sucked at the end). Bluder has the program solid, but in all her years, she still has yet to ever get past the 2nd round of the NCAA tourney and for the talent we've had, it's just plain disappointing.

I fully understand WHY we had to play on the road. That doesn't make it fair, but THAT doesn't mean that it's going to change. I don't have to like it.

But the fact that people feel that it's not fair (the "b*tching and moaning) doesn't make it a "non-sport", as the poster I was responding to stated.

I also know that Elite Eight games are never played at home. But Gonzaga is still playing in Spokane. And I only used Ohio State/UNC as a hypothetical example. There would be b*tching if the higher seed in the men's tournament had to play on the home floor of the lower seed.

I was only saying that his argument that women's basketball is a "non-sport", because of people being p*ssed about playing on the road against the lower seed, was stupid. Because the same reaction would rear its head if the same practice were used in the men's tournament. I'm sure nobody would be calling men's college basketball a "non-sport" if that happened (even though I know it won't).

 

[Row55]

Bluder-wise, we'll never know what would have happened if Johanna Solverson and Lindsay Richards had four injury-free years. The few times she was fully healthy, Solverson was really something.