NCAA sorry for inequities, and vows to improve
SAN ANTONIO » NCAA basketball administrators apologized to the women’s basketball players and coaches after inequities between the men’s and women’s tournament went viral on social media and vowed to do better.
NCAA Senior Vice President of Basketball Dan
Gavitt vowed to do better during a zoom call Friday morning, a day after photos showed the difference between the weight rooms at the two tournaments.
“I apologize to the women’s student-athletes, coaches and committee for dropping the ball on the weight room issue in San Antonio, we’ll get it fixed as soon as possible,” Gavitt said.
During the call, other differences were raised: There are 68 teams in the men’s filed, 64 in the women; and the NCAA pays for the men’s National Invitational Tournament, but not the women’s NIT.
“The field size and NIT, those would be decisions made in conjunction with membership,” Gavitt said. “Those are not decision we could make independently.
They are good questions and it’s timely to raise those issues again.”
In a step to solve the weight room issue, the NCAA modified space in the convention center to turn it into a useable workout facility. That work should be completed Saturday. The NCAA had offered ro put a weight-lifting area in the open space next to the practice courts, but coaches didn’t want that because then other teams would be in the vicinity when they were practicing.
“We fell short this year in what we have been doing to prepare in the last 60 days for 64 teams to be in San Antonio. We acknowledge that,” said NCAA Senior Vice President of women’s basketball Lynn Holzman, who is a former college basketball player. “Last night we did have a call with our coaches and team administrators in a way to solicit feedback and their experience thus far.
“Yesterday was the first day our teams had the opportunity to have practice,” she said. “Part of that call was to get feedback on potential solutions to address some of those concerns, including the weight room issue.”