Guranteed Hosting!!!!

[aaronic]

That's right. There supposedly is a new thing that the NCAA has come up with in that the Top Four seeds in the Tourney WILL be guranteed in hosting their Subregional!!!



starbulletin.com/2006/11/23/sports/notebook.html

NCAA gives Wahine something to play for
By Cindy Luis
[e-mail]

RENO, Nev. » The odds that Hawaii will host the first and second rounds of the NCAA tournament next week are better than those of winning the Megabucks jackpot here. But if the 12th-ranked Rainbow Wahine were among the top four seeds, they would be guaranteed to stay home under a new policy recently instituted by the NCAA Championships Committee.

The policy will affect all sports, not just women's volleyball, according to UH associate athletic director Marilyn Moniz-Kaho'ohanohano, a committee member. She said the top four seeds will be "protected" and remain at home for the first two rounds.

Hawaii, which will host one of four predetermined regional sites Dec. 8-9, has not hosted a subregional since 2003. The Rainbow Wahine were 28-0 and seeded third in 2005 but shipped to Colorado State for the first two rounds. Last year, Hawaii was 25-6 and seeded seventh and was assigned to Austin, Texas. Both years, Hawaii advanced to the regional, only to lose its opening match.

[GatorVball]

Top 4 overall or top 4 in each region?

[aaronic]

gatorvball said:

Top 4 overall or top 4 in each region?

Good question. I automatically assumed it was overall, but it doesn't exactly mention that. Hmm... I guess we'll see in three days.

[Wolfgang]

You know how this will play out? The NCAA committee will want some teams to host and other teams not to host (for a variety of reasons, including, lower cost and political favoritism and, arguably, for the betterment of the sport). So, they will just seed the favored teams in the Top 4 (so long as they can get away with it with a straight face, and if not, oh well, it's our frikkin' tournament!) and the less favored teams out of the Top 4. If they really did not want Hawaii to host, they will simply not seed Hawaii in the Top 4.

[SaltNPepper]

It has to mean top 4 seeds overall. If it were the top 4 in each region, then it would apply to all 16 seeded teams and effectively eliminate the 400 mile travel rule which I'm sure wasn't the intent (or maybe it really was ).

If this is true (I'm hoping it is) then the politics of lobbing for a top 4 seed among maybe that top 8 or so teams in the future will probably increase. I wouldn't think this going to be a huge deal for a team like Stanford or USC where there are generally lots of tournament teams in their 400 radius area meaning they probably will be able to host 1st and 2nd round matches anyway. But for Nebraska or Washington (or Hawaii) this could be very important for them if they would seem to be a 1 or a 2 regional seed.

Now, with a little (more) manipulation of the seeding by the selection committee, I can see where if they wanted to, they could get probably the top 6 - 8 or so teams all hosting 1st and 2nd rounds. An example would be like swapping a #5 and #6 seed that don't have enough teams near them with the #3 and #4 who do, and the net effect will be they all host 1st and 2nd rounds.

So does this rule change make this weekend's Washington vs. Stanford and Texas vs. Nebraska matches even more important to these teams? I think so.

[Ye Olde Dawg]

I don't know about Stanford or the other teams, but to Washington this could be a big deal. The publicity people for UW have been optimistic about hosting rounds 1 and 2, but UW didn't host last year because there weren't enough selected teams close enough to Seattle. And this year, who besides Oregon is close enough and likely to be selected?

[volleysean27]

Oregon will not be put in with washington in the 1st or 2nd rounds

[lilred]

Listening to post game interview with Cook. According to Baylor (the announcer), he asked Todd Henrichs (the Lincoln Journal Star reporter) who had looked into this today. Henrichs says this is not true for this year. Hmm...

Even Eliot was telling Cook pre-match that this was the case. I guess we will see tomorrow.

[JHAM]

Last night on the broadcast of PSU and Illinois the announcers were claiming that PSU would be hosting this coming weekend and I just thought that they didn't know what they were talking about as usual but they wouldn't have even known if PSU was a number 1 seed or not at that time. Hmmmm.

[Deleted]

Guaranteed hosing?

Yep. But who?