ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, February 25, 1996 TAG: 9602260083
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: Jack Bogaczyk
SOURCE: JACK BOGACZYK
The progress has seemed to come in dribbles, but women's basketball is getting there.
The first U.S. Olympic ``Dream Team'' has played and promoted its way across the nation toward the Atlanta Games. A new professional circuit, the American Basketball League, will follow what should be a gold-medal performance with a 40-game season for eight franchises, including one in Richmond.
When the NCAA's 64-team Division I tournament field is bracketed two weeks from tonight, women's hoops will be headed for more than a Final Four at the Charlotte Coliseum. There has been a concerted effort in the game to change, to maximize exposure.
The ESPN telecast to announce the women's pairings this year has been moved to 7:30 p.m., back seven hours, and after the men's bracket is revealed. That also gives the selection committee more time to consider its picks and seeds.
The move of the Final Four from CBS to ESPN also brings with it another 22 tournament games on the cable network. Every game from the ``Sweet Sixteen'' round through the championship will be shown live. The tournament schedule also has been altered to avoid conflicts with some of the men's ``Big Dance.''
The women will play eight second-round games on a Monday, while the men are off. The regionals move to a Saturday/Monday schedule. The men play Thursday/Saturday or Friday/Sunday. The men's and women's Final Fours will be played on different days, too, with all three women's games now in prime time.
There is one move the women are not yet ready to make, however. While the Division I men's tournament hasn't allowed a school to play on its home floor in any round of the NCAA Tournament since 1989, the women still not only play at campus sites for the first two rounds, but bracket regional hosts so they'll stay home for a potential four games.
Connecticut and Tennessee didn't have to leave home to reach the Final Four last year. Virginia has that potential this season. The Cavaliers, likely to be a second seed in the East Region, have the East Regional at University Hall. One reason UVa already has sold 5,000 regional tickets is fans know that barring an early upset, coach Debbie Ryan's team will be playing at home.
``I don't think we're there yet, where we can go to neutral sites and assign teams away from their home floors,'' said Atlantic 10 Conference commissioner Linda Bruno, who finishes her term as chair of the NCAA women's basketball committee with the '96 tournament. ``We're trying to build interest, to create an atmosphere for the game.''
In the recent past, the women's committee has seeded only the top 16 teams in the field, then bracketed the other teams regionally, also in hopes of building audiences. This year for the first time, all 64 women's entrants will be seeded nationally, with no consideration for geography - other than keeping the four regional hosts on their home courts.
Last year, 14 of the 16 teams that were first- and second-round hosts advanced to the regionals. The road warriors were N.C. State and Purdue. Bruno acknowledges this situation ``compromises'' a national championship, but there is a larger concern - the sport.
``I think we have to be very careful about going to all neutral sites too soon,'' she said. ``We've gone this far; we don't want to kill it. We want to work toward neutral sites, but conservatively, I'd say we're at least a couple of years away, maybe more, from doing that.''
Bruno's league begins its March madness Friday when the A-10 tournament opens at Virginia Tech's Cassell Coliseum. Next week at the Dedmon Center, Radford can win its third consecutive NCAA berth in the Big South tournament. The 64-team field includes 31 conference champions and 33 at-large teams.
One NCAA basketball tournament record could be set even before a game is played in this year's tournament. The Southeastern Conference could get a record one-eighth of the field. No conference has placed eight teams in either a men's or women's tournament. The SEC has had seven women's bids three times. The Big Ten and Big East had that many in the men's field in 1990 and '91, respectively.
Don't be surprised if the SEC has six of the 16 women's regional semifinalists. The rest of the field should just be happy the league doesn't have a regional host's role again until 1998.
LENGTH: Medium: 79 linesby CNB