ALBANY, N.Y. — There will be no home-court advantage here in the Sweet 16 for any of the top seeds. No. 1 seed South Carolina traveled more than 800 miles to get here, and fellow No. 1 seed Iowa is now a thousand miles from its home court.
But both got to play at home last weekend in front of huge crowds made up of their own raucous fans. That’s because the top 16 seeds in the NCAA women’s tournament get to host first- and second-round games, a format that has existed since 2015.
A total of 292,456 fans attended first- and second-round games this year, a 27 percent increase over 2023’s then-record first-weekend attendance. Iowa City, unsurprisingly, topped all hosts with sellout crowds that accounted for 28,764 fans at one site alone.
With such strong attendance and three consecutive years of record-setting crowds, those in and around the sport wonder whether the time is right to move to predetermined neutral sites, much like the men’s tournament uses for its first weekend.
Lynn Holzman, the NCAA’s vice president for women’s basketball, told The Athletic this week that she is urging the Division I women’s basketball committee to expedite its review of site format in light of the shattered attendance records and trendlines for the sport overall. The committee had…
