DePaul and NU women dancing in NCAA tourney

Contrary to popular belief, the state of Illinois has not been shut out of the NCAA tournament.

Sure, no men's teams made it.

But the women got two teams in. Northwestern and DePaul open their NCAA tournament runs today. The seventh-seeded Wildcats take on No. 10 Arkansas at Baylor in Waco, Tex. (11 a.m., ESPN2), while No. 9 DePaul faces No. 8 Minnesota at Notre Dame in South Bend (4 p.m., ESPN2).

A second-round date for either team would likely be against a top seed on its own floor. The women's tournament has returned to its old format of campus sites in the early rounds, hosted by higher-seeded teams.

Neutral sites, as attractive as they were from a competitive standpoint, even producing some upsets, weren't working so well.

"The restructuring of the tournament is back to the future," DePaul coach Doug Bruno said. "Going back to home sites for the first 16 seeds goes back to 2002 or 2003. Do I like it? I have to like it, because our objective right now is to put fans in the seats for the tournament. I want to like it for the bigger picture of the women's game.

"This is the best step to be taken to do that. It's a priority. There will be 10,000 people in South Bend. Our people can drive. The Minnesota people can get there if they want to drive, or there are easy flights to Chicago. If you look at the brackets across the country, there is a lot of local flavor there (with teams being placed at nearby campus sites). And that's good for the overall women's game."

Sacrificing for the big picture doesn't make the smaller picture any easier to take, though. Winning on the road is never easy. Winning against a top seed on its own floor is even tougher.

If Northwestern would win its first-round game, it would likely get No. 2 Baylor while DePaul would likely face No. 1 Notre Dame.

"Is it easy to beat anyone on the road in basketball? Never," Bruno said. "But I don't know if the other way (neutral sites) was working in terms of getting fans in the stands."

Good company: DePaul is one of only seven teams to appear in each of the last 13 NCAA tournaments. Joining the Blue Demons on the list are nothing but perennial powers: Connecticut, Duke, Notre Dame, Oklahoma, Stanford and Tennessee.

National champs: Connecticut isn't the only national title monopolizer.

DePaul is racking up the championships, too. The academic championships, that is.

Inside Higher Ed took the 64-team field of the 2015 NCAA women's basketball tournament and advanced teams based on their APR (the NCAA's multiyear measure of classroom progress) and their NCAA Graduation Rate Success.

Based on that formula, the Blue Demons topped Wisconsin-Green Bay for the national title. It is the third time in four years that DePaul has been recognized as the top academic program in the NCAA tournament field.

Cats are back: After collecting 23 wins, including 12 in the competitive Big Ten Conference, Northwestern earned its seventh bid into the NCAA Tournament, and the first since 1997.

The Wildcats' last victory in the Big Dance came on March 17, 1993, a 90-62 destruction of Georgia Tech in the opening round.

Follow Patricia on Twitter: @babcockmcgraw