ANOTHER JUMP FORWARD\Women's tourney has different look.Byline: Chuck Schoffner Associated Press Associated Press: see news agency. Associated Press (AP) Cooperative news agency, the oldest and largest in the U.S. and long the largest in the world. Fans will get a much sharper picture of the NCAA NCAA abbr. National Collegiate Athletic Association women's basketball Women's basketball is one of the few games which developed in tandem with men's. It became popular, spreading from the east coast of the United States to the west coast, in large part via women's colleges. tournament when this year's pairings roll across the television screen tonight. Not only will they find out which teams the selection committee considers to be the nation's best, they'll also learn which ones are deemed the weakest. For the first time, all 64 teams in the women's tournament are being seeded on a national basis. It meant more work for the committee, but also gave the group greater flexibility. "It will be much more clean cut," said committee member Elaine Hieber, senior associate athletic director Athletic director (commonly, "athletics director") is a position at many American colleges and universities, as well as in larger high schools and middle schools, which oversees the work of the coaches and related staff involved in intercollegiate or interscholastic athletic at Iowa State. "We won't be limited to trying to keep them close to their region. We can send them across the country without feeling guilty about it. I think that maybe will take some of the emotions out of it." Last year, only the top 16 teams were given true seeds based on their win-loss record, schedule, power ratings and all the other factors that go into ranking the NCAA teams. With one exception, those teams were made the host schools for 16 subregionals. Purdue couldn't play host because of a high school tournament at its arena. After that, geography became a factor as the committee tried to keep the remaining 48 teams fairly close to their home regions. Some strange numbers resulted, such as Mississippi of the powerful Southeastern Conference getting a No. 12 seed and Indiana of the Big Ten being seeded 14th. That won't be the case this year. "Once you get below the top 16, you're going to see a big difference in what we can do," selection committee chair Linda Bruno said. "We do not need to pay attention to geographics." The outcome should be a better bracket, Hieber said. "Now it will be more rational why a number five or a number six got sent to wherever they were sent," she said. Most coveted cov·et v. cov·et·ed, cov·et·ing, cov·ets v.tr. 1. To feel blameworthy desire for (that which is another's). See Synonyms at envy. 2. To wish for longingly. See Synonyms at desire. are those top 16 seeds, which mean a home court for the first two rounds of regional play. Bruno, commissioner of the Atlantic 10 Conference The Atlantic 10 Conference (A-10) is a college athletic conference which operates mostly on the United States' eastern seaboard. It also has two member schools in Ohio: Dayton and Xavier, located in Dayton and Cincinnati, respectively. Another member, Saint Louis is located in St. , said the committee tries to seed those 16 teams as honestly as possible. She said one team wouldn't get preference over another simply because it draws bigger crowds. "We try not to look at that," she said. "The compromise is that we are playing on a home floor. It would be unfair to compromise even more to move people out of a true seed in order to get crowds." The subregional winners advance to regional sites that already have been determined - the East at Charlottesville, Va.; the Mideast in Chicago, the Midwest in Nacogdoches, Texas Nacogdoches (pronounced [ˌnæːkə̆ˈdoʊtʃɪs]) is a city in Nacogdoches County, Texas, in the United States. As of the 2000 census, the city population was 29,914. , and the West in Seattle. Defending national champion Connecticut (East), Tennessee (Mideast), Louisiana Tech (Midwest) and Stanford (West) are the likely No. 1 seeds. No. 2 seeds should go to Georgia, Texas Tech, Iowa and Penn State. The others in the top 16 should come from this group: Old Dominion, Alabama, Virginia, Vanderbilt, Duke, Purdue, Clemson, Colorado, Florida, Wisconsin and Auburn Auburn (ô`bərn). 1 City (1990 pop. 33,830), Lee co., E Ala.; inc. 1839. The city's economy centers around Auburn Univ.; there is some manufacturing. 2 City (1990 pop. 24,309), seat of Androscoggin co. . The SEC, traditionally the nation's strongest conference, again is expected to lead in NCAA selections. SEC members Georgia, Tennessee, Vanderbilt, Alabama, Auburn and Florida are shoo-ins. Mississippi also should get in, with LSU LSU Louisiana State University LSU Large Subunit LSU La Salle University (Philadelphia, PA) LSU La Sierra University LSU Link State Update (OSPF) LSU Learning Support Unit a possibility. League coaches would like to think Arkansas has a shot, too. The Lady Razorbacks were only 3-8 in the conference but 16-2 outside the SEC. The SEC landed seven teams in NCAA play last year. Bruno said there's no preset preset Cardiac pacing A parameter of a pacemaker that is programmed permanently when manufactured limit on how many teams the committee takes from a conference or league. "What we want to do is who deserves to be in the tournament regardless of whether they're the sixth-, seventh- or eighth-place team in a conference," she said. "You can't penalize pe·nal·ize tr.v. pe·nal·ized, pe·nal·iz·ing, pe·nal·iz·es 1. To subject to a penalty, especially for infringement of a law or official regulation. See Synonyms at punish. 2. people because they're in a conference where a lot of teams are ranked. "You also can't penalize teams in conferences where a team plays a lot of teams not highly ranked but goes out and plays a good schedule." No. 1-ranked Louisiana Tech and No. 6 Old Dominion are examples of that. Neither has been tested in its conference. But Tech has played Connecticut, Colorado, DePaul, Ohio State and Tennessee, while Old Dominion has faced Georgia, Stanford, Texas and Tennessee. CAPTION(S): PHOTO Connecticut, whose players include Kara Wolters She grew up in a basketball family. (52), is expected to be among the No. 1 seeds. Associated Press |
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