Todd’s Take: Innovation Needed To Give Women’s Basketball Neutral Court NCAA Tourney Games

Indiana faced a buzzsaw at South Carolina’s Colonial Life Arena in the NCAA Tournament, but the Hoosiers have benefited when they were hosts. Fairness would dictate that women’s basketball should play at neutral sites, but how can it work?

Todd Golden | Mar 24, 2025

Indiana guard Lexus Bargesser attempts a shot during Indiana's second round NCAA Tournament game at South Carolina on March 23, 2025 played at Colonial Life Arena in Columbia, S.C. / Indiana athletics

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COLUMBIA, S.C. – For the first time since 2021, Indiana women’s basketball had to go on the road on the first weekend of the NCAA Tournament.

It wasn’t just that the Hoosiers had to travel, but they had the bad luck of the draw that they had to go to South Carolina. The defending national champions are akin to a pro sport in the Palmetto State. South Carolina has led the nation in attendance since 2015.

Ninth-seeded Indiana played very hard on Sunday at Colonial Life Arena. The Hoosiers outscored the Gamecocks by a point when taking the totals of the first, second and fourth quarters.

Before anyone pipes up, yes, it’s a four-quarter game, and yes, Indiana was outscored by 12 in the third quarter on its way to a 64-53 defeat.

That’s been a pattern for Indiana all season – the close-but-no-cigar competitiveness against the elite of the game. So in that way this game fit in with a pair of close losses against USC and a home loss to UCLA.

A very convincing argument could be made that Indiana might have done better on Sunday had it played on a neutral floor. Once the Gamecocks got rolling in the third quarter, their fans got loud and made life difficult on the Hoosiers. Five Indiana turnovers in the third quarter could be partly attributed to the din.

None of this is particularly fair. Especially when the men’s basketball tournament has banned schools from playing at home sites since the late 1980s.

Neutral sites aren’t used in the women’s basketball tournament until the Sweet 16 round. It has been that way since 1994, when the women’s tournament first became a 64-team affair.

For years, women’s basketball observers have advocated for the women’s tournament to take the lead of the men’s tournament and play at neutral sites in the first and second rounds.

Indiana women’s basketball coach Teri Moren has been on both sides of the coin. This was the first time Indiana went on the road since 2019.

Moren seemed cognizant of the chutzpah of advocating for neutral site games – just one year removed from having hosted three seasons in a row.

“I got asked a couple days ago about playing at home, and I had to be really careful because I've had the luxury of playing at home and how important that is,” Moren said. “But going to neutral sites, would that help? The parity is so great right now, does that matter? I think it does.”

“I think we've got to get to a point where we sort of mirror what the guys do and have those neutral sites, because matchups matter, but home-court advantage matters,” Moren continued. “Again, I've been a recipient. I've been on the other side of this where our players have had to come in, players have had to come into Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall and play in such a daunting place with our fans.”

“So I think that's going to be something that may change as we move forward with women's basketball,” Moren concluded.

In a perfect world, this change would happen immediately. The fairest way to determine a college tournament champion is to play on a neutral court. I don’t think anyone sane would argue that.

Unfortunately, having neutral site games isn’t a simple matter of fairness. It’s still a difficult economic proposition. There’s a reason why men’s basketball is the only team vs. team NCAA sport (as opposed to sports, like cross country, where multiple teams compete against each other at once) to play at neutral sites. The men’s tournament makes enough money to justify it.

Women’s basketball is getting achingly close to that threshold. We’ve seen the massive success stories of recent years. I was in Minneapolis for the 2024 Big Ten Tournament and saw the huge crowds (129,512 total) that showed up to see Caitlin Clark and for some of the sessions that didn’t feature Clark. The mania for Clark and others has undeniably and justifiably raised the profile of the sport.

Those are the success stories we see and read about. Understandably not as advertised are turnouts for some games that don’t have a built-in fanbase.

South Carolina Gamecocks guard Bree Hall (23) celebrates after a three point basket against the Indiana Hoosiers in the second half at Colonial Life Arena. / Jeff Blake-Imagn Images

For example, crowds for the non-Indiana games at Gainbridge Fieldhouse at the 2025 Big Ten Tournament were low. Even the games featuring two top 5 teams in UCLA and USC – featuring two All-American players in UCLA’s Lauren Betts and USC’s JuJu Watkins – were nothing close to a sellout. The title game drew 8,358.

It costs a lot of money to host neutral site games. There’s a reason why they’re bid out years in advance. It’s akin to hosting a convention. From an attendance point of view, a neutral site tournament needs to draw to justify the cost incurred in hosting it.

As it stands, the powers-that-be have determined that women’s basketball isn’t there yet to economically justify neutral sites for first- and second-round games.

However, it’s a goal everyone wants to get to, so how do you get there? Innovation is required.

Perhaps the women’s basketball first and second rounds could be hosted much like the Sweet 16 round. A few years ago, the women’s basketball tournament went to two regional sites instead of the traditional four. Games are played every day at the two regionals.

Perhaps that model could be replicated for the first two rounds? Four sites that host four games each day. A basketball festival with double the amount of fans at each site.

Another thought is to go back in time and make it truly a regional proposition. A South region filled with teams from the South, etc. The advantage of that is short driving distances for fans and the greater likelihood you get consistent turnout. The disadvantage is that the regions aren’t balanced competitively.

A few years ago, I came around to the idea that maybe the women’s schedule itself needs to be changed. The women’s tournament competes for air in March with the men’s tournament.

While serious inroads have been made in recent years by fans to view the two tournaments as equals, it’s still putting fans in a position to have to support one or the other in terms of what to attend.

So take that out of the equation. Start the women’s season after Thanksgiving and let the women’s tournament have the spotlight to itself. April Madness rolls off the tongue just as easily as March Madness does.

It’s just one idea – very likely with problems of its own. However, it’s not fair to women’s basketball players to wait for the economics to catch up to make neutral sites viable. Innovation in escaping traditional boundaries is needed to turn something we all know is fair from possible to probable.

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