Babcock McGraw: DePaul women hoping to gain NCAA host advantage
Nearly 15 years ago, Pat Summitt, the legendary Tennessee women's basketball coach, was preparing for the early rounds of the NCAA tournament.
Her team was sent to Tallahassee, Florida, along with DePaul, George Washington and Colgate.
"I think it was 2004, and I remember all of us had to go to a coaches administrative meeting and Pat was walking with me and (Northwestern coach) Joe McKeown, who was the head coach at George Washington at the time," DePaul coach Doug Bruno said. "Pat told us that she was going to have to follow our lead because she wasn't used to being away from home for the early rounds."
Until that year, when the NCAA had gone from home sites to neutral sites for the early rounds, Tennessee had never started the tournament away from home.
The NCAA tournament for women started in 1982. That would be 22 straight years, or 44 games, of early homecourt advantage for Tennessee. That's a huge advantage.
DePaul, on the other hand, hasn't been so fortunate.
"We've been in a total of 22 NCAA tournaments, and we've played two (early-round) home games," Bruno said.
But that number could soon go up for the Blue Demons.
DePaul is keeping its fingers crossed that it will have the chance to host first- and second-round games next week. To do that, the Blue Demons must snag one of the top 16 seeds of the 64-team field.
DePaul might have been a shoe-in for hosting responsibilities with a win over Marquette this week in the Big East tournament championship, but the loss to Marquette muddies the water a bit.
Not that RPI is all-telling, but DePaul is No. 17 in the RPI strength of schedule rankings. The Blue Demons are also ranked No. 17 in the Top 25 Associated Press poll. Interestingly, Stanford, a certain top 16 seed, is unable to host first- and second-round games because their gym will be occupied with other events.
"We are prepared to host, and we would love to host," Bruno said. "We are right there on the bubble. It would be huge to host."
The women went from home sites in the first and second rounds to neutral sites to make the tournament more fair. But ticket sales were sluggish, so a change was made about four years ago to go back to home sites.
"There's a reason why they do all neutral sites in the men's tournament," Bruno said. "It's more competitive. It's more fair. But the men can support that. They don't have as much of a challenge selling tickets as we do. Home sites makes it easier to sell tickets."
Bruno hopes fans come out, no matter the site. While Connecticut is the odds-on favorite to win a fifth straight national championship, the march to that point should be interesting.
"There are a lot of really good teams out there," Bruno said. "A lot could happen. I think this is more wide open than people think. I think it will be a really fun tournament."
Top of the heap:
The likely top seeds in the women's tournament are: Connecticut, Baylor, Notre Dame and South Carolina.
The ACC will likely get the most conference teams in with eight: Notre Dame, Louisville, Florida State, Syracuse, North Carolina State, Duke, Miami and Virginia.
The Big Ten will likely get five teams: Maryland, Ohio State, Michigan, Michigan State and Purdue. And the Big East will likely get three: Marquette, DePaul and Creighton.
Northern Illinois is trying to win the MAC tournament championship this weekend for an automatic qualifier. The Huskies face Toledo in the championship game in Cleveland at 10 a.m. today on ESPN3.
Tune in:
The 64-team NCAA tournament field will be unveiled on Monday, officially dubbed "Selection Monday," at 6 p.m. on ESPN.
• Patricia Babcock McGraw also works as a basketball color analyst for games involving DePaul University, the Big Ten, the Big East, Northern Illinois University, Chicago Sky and the Illinois High School Association. Follow her on Twitter @BabcockMcGraw.