Geno on two-site regionals: "The dumbest thing ever"

It’s safe to say Geno Auriemma is not a fan of the two-site regionals in the NCAA Tournament.

Previously, the four regional brackets were played across four different cities, generally spread evenly around the country. That changed last year when two cities hosted two regionals each with the idea that it would attract more fans and do a better job of filling up arenas.

Yet with women’s basketball having its moment where attention and interest seem to be climbing exponentially, Auriemma believes the current format is hurting fans, not helping them.

“I hope this is the last year of this nonsense with two regionals. It makes absolutely no sense for anybody. The game of women's basketball has never been better, never been stronger, never been more popular with people watching. So you limit how many places you can watch it,” he said. “Now you go to Albany or you go to Portland and everybody in the rest of the country goes, ‘What about us?’ So I think it's the dumbest thing ever.”

Despite the complaint, Auriemma wasn’t upset about UConn getting sent all the way to Portland, even though Albany would’ve been a short drive from Storrs.

“You have to earn the right to play close to home and we certainly know how that feels because we've done it so many times,” he said. “That's part of having a great regular season.”

Unfortunately for Geno, the two-regional format will continue for two more seasons after this one: In 2025, Birmingham, AL and Spokane, WA will host while in 2026, it’s Fort Worth, TX and Sacramento, CA.

This year, the locations are Albany, NY and Portland, OR. Last season, Greenville, SC and Seattle, WA played host. Auriemma doesn’t like how far apart the two sites are.

“It's challenging for a lot of teams because if you're a West Coast team, you gotta go 3000 miles. If you're an East Coast team, you gotta go 3000 miles,” he said. “It's a real challenge for those teams that have to travel that far.”

That doesn’t serve the fans, either.

“I think the game is at a point now where decisions shouldn't be made just for television. People have proven that they’ll watch no matter what. The fans should matter,” Auriemma said. “There's a lot of fans across the country that would love to be able to go to these games and it's a huge expense to go to these games.”

The latter part is one of the main criticisms of the two-city format. The smaller cities — Greenville, Albany, etc. — may not have enough hotels and if they do, prices for those accommodations could skyrocket due to demand. They also aren’t the easiest places to get to.

This is the second year in a row that the Huskies will travel to the Pacific Northeastern for the regionals (assuming they get there) after going to Seattle last season. Before that, they hadn’t left the northeast since 2014, when they went out to Lincoln, Nebraska.

Other notable sites during past UConn tournament runs include Dayton, Ohio in 2010, Greensboro, North Carolina in 2008, Fresno, California in 2007, Kansas City in 2005, and Milwaukee, Wisconsin in 2002.

“You go where you're told to go and you play who you're told to play and whatever happens, happens,” Auriemma said.

Despite all the talk about the regional site, UConn has to get there first. While that may seem like a foregone conclusion considering the Huskies have made the last 29 Sweet Sixteens, they should be challenged in the second round.

They’ll either face 6-seed Syracuse, featuring Dyaisha Fair — one of the top guards in the nation and the type of player that UConn’s defense has struggled to contain this season — or an 11-seed, either Auburn or Arizona, depending on who wins the play-in game. While the latter may not seem too feisty, three 11-seeds have reached the Sweet Sixteen in the past five seasons.

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” Auriemma said. “The Storrs regional is our number one goal right now.”