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NATIONAL COLLEGIATE ATHLETIC ASSOCIATION MEDIA CONFERENCE

March 14, 2016

Chris Dawson

RICK NIXON: Good evening, everyone. This is Rick Nixon with the NCAA and tonight the NCAA Division I Women's basketball Championship Sport Committee announced the bracket for the 2016 NCAA Division I Women's Basketball Championship with play starting this Friday March 18, concluding April 5 at Bankers Life Fieldhouse in Indianapolis.

Before we take your questions tonight, ask for committee chair Chris Dawson to make an opening statement.

CHRIS DAWSON: Thank you, Rick. Good evening, everyone, and thank you for joining us on the call tonight.

I want to start by thanking the committee members. We have ten people on the women's basketball committee, and those ten individuals are the ones responsible for selecting, seeding and bracketing this tournament.

The committee in total watched over 1,200 games over the course of the season, and studied information that ranged from extensive team data, statistical data, coaches' rankings of the various regions, conversations with each other, and did everything possible to get in-depth knowledge of the teams before we arrived at Indianapolis on Thursday to start our task.

Our process here has three distinct parts. First, we select the teams. Second, we seed them in true seed order, 1 to 64 and third we put them in the bracket. And these areas, tasks, really operate independently of each other. We did our due diligence every step of the way, and it was very challenging every step of the way, as it is every year.

We believe we have put together a bracket that will result in exciting games. We have got great first-round matchups. We have got great regional sites, and of course, we know we are going to have a great championship here in Indianapolis when we have the Division I, II, III Women's Championships all together.

Q. Quick question for you guys, was there any thought given to keeping Kentucky in Lexington because they are a 3-seed and potentially they are going to play their first four games if they go that far, on campus or the in neighborhood.
CHRIS DAWSON: Well, as we put together the bracket, we faced some unique challenges, because we had multiple teams from multiple conferences in the top four lines. We have a seeding principle that says that when you have teams from the same conference in the top four lines, you have to separate them into each region.

And so the result of some of that separation was one of the factors that caused Connecticut to -- Connecticut. That caused Kentucky to end up in the Lexington regional.

We also have a principle that says for regional competition, a team can't play at a site where they have played more than two games; any arena, a specific arena, where they haven't played more than two games, not including their conference postseason tournament.

And Kentucky played fewer than three regular-season games at Rupp Arena. Thus, when they bid and secured the bid, the way the bracket worked out, Kentucky ended up at Lexington.

I'll also say that we welcome the opportunity to have the great fan support we get in this area and I think you'll see that all four of our regional sites, we're going to have great fan support based on the teams that are assigned there and the interest in women's basketball.

Q. I know you discussed on ESPN the hairsplitting for Notre Dame and South Carolina as far as who was the No. 2 and No. 2 overall.
CHRIS DAWSON: Right.

Q. I don't know geography that well, but if South Carolina is No. 2, weren't they closer to Lexington than Sioux Falls?
CHRIS DAWSON: Well, you're right. One of the principles says that the committee will attempt to place the teams in their closest geographic region by the S-Curve. And as we discussed it, in terms of student athlete welfare and an attempt to balance the bracket as best we could, it became apparent that having South Carolina go to Sioux Falls and Notre Dame in Lexington would accomplish that.

Notre Dame, under the NCAA policy, a drive, the distance that teams have to drive when they are in the NCAA women's basketball championship is 350 Miles. Notre Dame is within 350 Miles of Lexington. For South Carolina, it was going to be a flight either way.

So it's true, South Carolina will have to play a little farther, but you may also recall that last year we had a similar situation. We followed the same process. Notre Dame was the able to -- they were the No. 2 seed, and they ended up being sent to Oklahoma City whereas South Carolina, the No. 3 seed, ended up driving to Greensboro.

Q. There was some surprise here that Arizona State was the No. 2 seed, considering they lost in the last two games. Can you just discuss that decision?
CHRIS DAWSON: Yes, well, as the Pac-10 conference member, I have to recuse myself when there are discussions about Pac-12 teams.

But the question about Arizona State versus UCLA as a 2-seed versus a 3-seed did come up, and actually the committee discussed that and revisited it several times.

The primary consideration was Arizona State's co-championship with Oregon State during the regular season, and the way they performed over the course of the season.

Q. I cover the University of South Florida and they were very pleased with their No. 6 season. They feel like you took into account that they spent the calendar year not entirely healthy. What puzzled Coach Fernandez was the fact that they are in the Bridgeport region, there are two American Athletic Conference teams in the field and both are in the same region, which means conceivably they could play Connecticut a fourth time before the Final Four. Can you discuss that decision?
CHRIS DAWSON: One of the bracketing principles is that teams from the same conference should not meet until the regional Final, and that would be the case if South Florida and UCONN both advance.

I think having those two in the same region was largely a function of the need to separate other conference teams. For example, the Pac-12 had four teams in the Top-16. The SEC, ACC and Big Ten each had three. As you say, the American had two. The Big 12 had two.

So as we attempted to separate them and also meet some of the other bracketing principles that we have, including not having repeats of regular-season games, for example, South Florida wound up in the Bridgeport region.

Q. I had a question about just how come -- St. Bonaventure, Duquesne is a nine. Wondering how much the end of the season and the conference tournament played a part in that, and also just in terms of your calculations, how St. Louis came into play, whether winning the conference semis would have put them into consideration for the at-large bracket, whether their early home loss to George Mason was a real disqualifying factor?
CHRIS DAWSON: Well, we had -- we definitely had St. Louis on the board as we started our discussions. I mean, this was an interesting year because we had 11 conference regular season champions that did not get their conference AQ because they faltered at some point in their conference tournament, and St. Louis was one of those teams.

I think that the bad losses that St. Louis had to George Mason and also to SIU Edwardsville were factors. They won early over Duquesne in the regular season and they lost to Duquesne during the conference tournament, and also, their non-conference strength of schedule was very high, over 200.

So as St. Louis was considered along with all of the other teams at-large, other teams had elements that caused them to rise above St. Louis.

Q. I was wondering about a team like Florida Gulf Coast, a mid-major team with a very good record, they were undefeated in conference play, they won 21 games straight; and the decision to not include them in the field.
CHRIS DAWSON: Florida Gulf Coast was another one of the teams that won the regular season conference championship, and then faltered in the tournament. We recognized they were without one of their top players for part of the season who returned. They did have a great regular season.

They had a Top-25 win over George Washington, a team that won the AQ from the Atlantic 10. And they also had other good things to recommend them.

Again, in their case, when compared with the group at the end -- so at the very end, we had 14 teams we were looking at for the last four spots. Florida Gulf Coast was one of those teams. Ultimately, other teams emerged ahead of them.

Q. And to follow up on that, if Colorado State would not have won their conference tournament championship, would they have been in the same place, not getting into the 64-team field?
CHRIS DAWSON: It's hard to say what would have happened if someone had not won a game that they did win. Colorado State was one of the teams that was on the board early. We certainly recognized the quality of their regular season, finishing 31-1 overall. They were the co-champions and they were now the conference tournament champions.

But, you know, they also had a very high strength of schedule. They played some non-Division I games, but yet they got the job done when they got to their conference tournament and earned their spot.

RICK NIXON: Thanks to everybody for joining us today.

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