NCAA discovers 3-point lines at women's tournament venue aren't the same distance from key
Sunday's women's Elite Eight NCAA Tournament game in Portland, Oregon, took a curious twist before tip-off when officials discovered the 3-point lines weren't the same distance on both sides of the court.
Under NCAA rules adopted in the 2021-22 season, the women's 3-point line was set at 22 feet,1¾ inches. However, the spaces from the top of the key to the 3-point line at the Moda Center appeared to be different. When the NCAA was asked to measure about a half hour before top-seeded Texas and No. 3 seed N.C. State were to tip off, they discovered that was indeed the case.
The ABC/ESPN television broadcast spoke with Lisa Peterson, the chair of the NCAA Division I Women's Basketball Committee, who confirmed that the floor had been the same all week and that both coaches agreed to go ahead and play.
An NCAA spokesman said in an email to USA TODAY Sports that there "wasn’t time to get official measurements before game tipped."
Five games had been played on the Moda Center floor during the tournament before Sunday.
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The Longhorns became the first No. 1 seed to be eliminated in the 76-66 loss.
Texas coach Vic Schaefer said he was told while the Longhorns were warming up that there was a "discrepancy" with the 3-point line.
"They gave us the option of bringing somebody in and remarking it, but it would have taken an hour and we might have lost our (television) window on ABC," Schaefer said in his postgame news conference.
Schaefer added that N.C. State head coach Wes Moore wanted to play.
"I wasn’t going to be the guy that goes, ‘No, I don’t want to play,’ " Schaefer said.
Moore said the line on Texas’s bench was correct and that the line on N.C. State's end was "a little bit short." But he added, "If it would have gone to overtime, maybe we'd have had a complaint."
Schaefer did not tell his team about the 3-point lines and said "it’s a shame."
"But it is what it is, I don’t think anyone wanted to draw the attention to it and put the (game) off for an hour," Schaefer said.
Peterson told ESPN that the floor will be professionally measured Monday, before top-seeded Southern California is scheduled to take on No. 3 seed UConn for the final spot in the women's Final Four.
In a statement issued on social media after halftime of the game, the NCAA said: "The NCAA was notified today that the three-point lines on the court at Moda Center in Portland are not the same distance. The two head coaches were made aware of the discrepancy and elected to play a complete game on the court as is, rather than correcting the court and delaying the game. The court will be corrected before tomorrow’s game in Portland."
The NCAA released an updated statement after the game that added: "At the conclusion of tonight’s game and practice in Portland, the NCAA will be measuring all court lines and markings on the court at the Moda Center. While the NCAA’s vendor has apologized for the error, we will investigate how this happened in the first place. The NCAA is working now to ensure the accuracy of all court markings for future games. We are not aware of any other issues at any of the prior sites for men’s or women’s tournament games. The NCAA regrets the error was not discovered sooner."
But as Schaefer pointed out as his Longhorns were consoling each other: "I have a lot of colleagues that would say only in women’s basketball. It’s a shame that it even happened."
Contributing: Lindsay Schnell in Portland, Oregon; Chris Bumbaca
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