For first time, Tennessee hosts no NCAA women's games

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. -- For the first time in NCAA women's tournament history, no games will be played in Tennessee this year.

The Volunteer State is sending five teams to the tournament, including No. 1 seed Tennessee. In the previous 25 years, at least one city in the state has hosted an NCAA game, but recent rule changes in tournament site bids have altered that.

"When it's our turn again, we'd love to host. We always look forward to hosting," Tennessee women's athletic director Joan Cronan said.

"Tennessee is such a hotbed of basketball. I think it's a shame we don't bring some of the elite teams to Tennessee. I think Nashville, Knoxville or Memphis need to work on hosting."

Vanderbilt played last year in Nashville for the first two rounds. Memphis (2000) and Chattanooga (2004, 2005) also have hosted.

The NCAA Division I Women's Basketball Committee voted in 2002 to have eight predetermined sites in the first two rounds of the tournament, starting in 2003. Before that season, the subregionals were played on the campuses of the teams with the top 16 seeds.

The change aims to make the sites more neutral and draw more fans to fewer sites.

The Lady Vols, who will travel to face 16th-seeded Drake in Pittsburgh on Sunday, hosted at least one game a year from the first tournament in 1982 to 2003.

Tennessee hosted the first and second round in 2005, but will not host again until 2010. The games at home obviously helped the Lady Vols win their six national championships, as they went 46-0 in the NCAA tournament in Knoxville.

"It's always great to play at home and play in your home state, but clearly we've enjoyed many, many opportunities of playing on our homecourt," Tennessee coach Pat Summitt said.

"I think that's just the situation now in women's basketball, that teams are going to have to travel and face opponents on their home floor."

Belmont, Chattanooga, Middle Tennessee and Vanderbilt are the other teams in the NCAAs from Tennessee.

This year probably would not have been a good time to have the NCAA tournament in Knoxville. Workers have already started ripping out the seats in Thompson-Boling Arena for renovations the school hopes to complete by next season.

The Lady Vols are one of only two teams in this year's tournament to have a chance to play a lower seed on its homecourt.

Tennessee could play eighth-seeded Pittsburgh in the second round.

Fourth-seeded Rutgers will be playing the first and second rounds in East Lansing, Mich., where Michigan State is the No. 5 seed playing at home. They could meet in the second round.

"We are bound on the principles and procedures that if a team gets in a tournament and they are hosting a first- and second-round site, then that team must play at their home site," selection committee chairwoman Judy Southard said.

"We had lengthy discussions about this situation as it relates specifically to Rutgers, and we tried every possible way we could think to keep that from happening, and as you know, it happens in another region, also."

Tennessee has had the advantage of playing its first four games in the state, something No. 1 seed Duke could have this year. The Blue Devils start in Raleigh, N.C., and could advance to the regional in Greensboro.

The Lady Vols won a national title in 1998 after first playing at home and then in Nashville for the regional.

The same happened in 2000, first in Knoxville and then in Memphis for the regional. The Lady Vols hosted both the first and seconds rounds and regional in Knoxville in 2003. Those two years did not lead to national championships.

"We've had the advantage so many times because of our fan support and the amount of times we've hosted," Summitt said. "Certainly I can't complain about playing on somebody's homecourt."