Knoxville, Tenn.
There is something very eerie about thousands of people dressed in orange standing and clapping in unison. This was the scene leading up to the tip-off of Virginia's second appearance in the NCAA tournament this spring. The orange, however was not the orange and blue of the Cavaliers, but the orange and white of the Lady Vols, as Virginia fans failed to fill a full three rows in one section of Thompson-Boling Arena.
The NCAA must decide whether it wants to sell tickets or compete in a fair setting. This year, the NCAA initiated a new system for deciding what sites would be used in the women's tournament. In previous years, the sites had been determined based on the seeding of the teams in the bracket to allow the higher seeds the ability to play at home. This year, a number of predetermined sites were selected based on the strength of women's basketball programs, making it likely that a top seed would play at home. This was supposed to be a step toward neutrality. Last night's game made it clear that neutrality had not seeped its way into the system in the slightest.
The NCAA should use the same system for the women's tournament as it does for the men's, ensuring that each game is played at a site that is at least somewhat neutral. If the NCAA is more concerned about ticket sales than the fair, honest and great amateur athletic competition it symbolizes, then it ought to say so outright and make no pretense about attempting to use neutral courts.
The bottom line is that the system used by the NCAA this year is unfair all the way around. It was unfair for teams like Virginia who had to play in front of thousands of avid Tennessee fans on the Lady Vols' home court. Tennessee will have home court advantage through the next two rounds.
"It's nice because we're familiar with the court and the majority of the fans are cheering for us," senior Tennessee guard Kara Lawson said. "But the home court doesn't win or lose games."
Last night it was well more than a majority of the fans -- close to 95 percent of the audience were booing and yelling at the refs every time a call went Virginia's way. Not to mention the difficulty posed by playing in a hostile environment such as Thompson-Boling Arena last night.
"Obviously, playing in front of 10,000 fans with no one rooting for you is intimidating in itself," junior guard Anna Prillaman said.
The current system is not only unfair to the Virginias of the world, it is equally unfair to teams like Boston College, North Carolina, George Washington, Mississippi State, Arkansas and Ohio State, all teams that had to play on the home court of a lower-ranked team. If Tennessee should be allowed to play at home because they "earned" it, so did these teams. In fact, the third seed Carolina suffered a terrible defeat to Colorado in Boulder last night, and the No. 3 seed Mississippi State lost to New Mexico in Albuquerque.
A fair argument could be made that the outcome of these games would have been drastically different had they been played on the home court of the higher seeded team.
Cavalier fans need look no further than their basketball teams to realize how drastically important home court advantage can be. The Virginia men's team won only one road ACC game, winning five at home. The women's team won 11 of its 17 games at home and two more of their wins came at neutral sites.
Home court advantage is no trite matter and the NCAA should have thought through the scenarios that have arisen in their new system. Virginia should not be subjected to such a hostile environment of a top seed when other top seeds are playing on neutral or hostile courts themselves. This does not promote fairness in competition, which is what an amateur athletic association like the NCAA should be trying to promote. Next year, either go all the way to neutral sites or go back to home court advantage for all higher seeded teams.
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