Albany won’t host regional
Women’s basketball tourney to be staged in one geographic area
Hall of Fame coach Geno Auriemma and the powerful Connecticut women’s basketball team won’t be making another trip to Albany for the NCAA Tournament in March.
Neither will anybody else, because the coronavirus pandemic has taken another major event away from Times Union Center.
In an expected move, the NCAA announced Monday this season’s championship will be held in one geographic area, and that preliminary talks have begun with San Antonio and the surrounding region to serve as the potential landing spot for the 64-team tournament.
Times Union Center was scheduled to host the East Regional from March 26 to 29. The downtown Albany arena has been a regional site three previous times — in 2015, 2018 and 2019. Uconn has won all three in front of enthusiastic pro-huskies crowds. In 2019, the two sessions drew a combined 17,549 fans, including 9,204 who watched Uconn beat Louisville for the regional title.
“There’s nothing like playing in a packed building, whether it is all Uconn fans or whether it’s on the road,” Auriemma said in a Zoom conference. “Albany’s
always been a great event, not just because we won it all the time that we were up there or because our fans would go up there. I think just the way it’s run and the way it’s put together, the building, the way it’s organized, and the people support it.”
The NCAA men’s tournament is already going to a one-site tournament — possibly Indianapolis — because of the pandemic, which made it seem inevitable the women’s version would do the same.
“Conducting the championship in one geographic region allows for more planning and execution of safeguards that provide potential benefits for promoting the health and safety of student-athletes, the NCAA membership and all individuals involved in the championship,” Nina King, senior deputy athletics director and chief of staff at Duke, chair of the committee, said in a news release. “By making this difficult decision now, it allows for an earlier opportunity to work proactively with local public health officials within the host communities and ensures that the identified guidelines and protocols are considered for a more controlled environment.
“The committee and staff deeply appreciate the efforts of all the host institutions and conferences that were slated to host championship play in 2021, especially our predetermined regional hosts in Albany, Austin, Cincinnati and Spokane. We look forward to bringing the tournament back to the impacted sites in future years.”
There will be no refunds necessary in Albany. Tickets had not gone on sale yet.
“We figured this was an option
that they had to be thinking about,” Times Union Center general manager Bob Belber said. “The reality is, based on where we are with this pandemic, it probably makes sense to be able to host the whole tournament within a bubble region or market that has the number of hotels that would be able to take 64 teams. It takes a whole lot of rooms and infrastructure that’s able to host it.”
Times Union Center was supposed to host NCAA men’s firstand second-round games last March before the entire tournament was canceled due to COVID -19. The NCAA has since awarded Albany those same rounds in 2023.
“It (COVID -19) impacts the arena greatly,” Belber said. “It impacts Albany County, it impacts the downtown restaurants and bars and hotels, but everybody at this point knows what we’re going through, and it’s not just NCAA
events — all the sold-out concerts and family shows and motor sports.”
The women’s East Regional is due to come back to Times Union Center in 2024, when it will expand from a four-team event to eight teams.
The Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference and Siena College co-host the women’s East Regional, which MAAC commissioner Rich Ensor said he’s seen grow in popularity.
“It’s done very well, I think, being able to piggyback a little on Uconn’s success,” Ensor said. “But also, I think the first year Uconn was a big driver, but the last year in particular, the local fans have started to see the value of the event beyond Uconn and have started to enjoy it for what it is.”