Time For Basketball Teams to Open Practice

As basketball teams around the country get ready to kickoff practice for the 2010-11 season on Oct. 15, here are two stories (a men's and a women's) from the NCAA staff about the seasons getting ready to begin.

Midnight Madness Takes the Court this Weekend Nationwide; Regular Season Set to Begin November 12

David Worlock, Associate Director of the Division I Men's Basketball Championship

INDIANAPOLIS - Some 345 NCAA® Division I men’s basketball teams begin their journey on the road they hope will culminate at the Final Four®, as official practices will be conducted across the country this weekend. Many teams and their fans will gather across the country in arenas late Friday night to celebrate Midnight Madness, the annual celebration that marks the start to the season. Practices are permitted to begin after 5 p.m. Friday.

ESPNU will televise its Midnight Madness special featuring extensive whip-around coverage from top college basketball programs around the nation Friday at 9 p.m. ET. Coverage will focus on several men’s programs including defending national champion Duke, as well as Kentucky, Memphis, Gonzaga, Kansas State and St. John’s. The University of Connecticut women’s program – the two-time defending national champion, which is riding a 78-game winning streak (10 short of the UCLA men's record for consecutive victories in NCAA Division I basketball) – will also be featured.

Coming off a thrilling conclusion to the 2009-10 season that saw the Blue Devils win the men’s title after Butler’s half-court shot caromed off the rim, the upcoming season promises to give college basketball fans around the world more excitement.

However, the Madness is not limited to March.

Non-conference games in November feature contests such as Ohio State-Florida, Texas-Illinois, Kansas State-Gonzaga, Kansas-Arizona, Missouri-Georgetown and Tennessee-Pittsburgh. Blockbuster tilts continue in December with matchups such as Duke-Butler, Syracuse-Michigan State, Kentucky-North Carolina, Washington-Texas A&M and Temple-Villanova. And that’s just a small sampling.

In addition to the dozens of individual non-conference games, there will be several multi-team events that promise to feature matchups between the nation’s top programs. The NCAA has historically identified these events as ideal opportunities to use experimental rules, and this year is no exception. In May, the Men’s Basketball Rules Committee approved the experimental use of an expanded arc at two feet from the center of the basket. This identifies an area on the floor where a secondary defender is not able to establish legal guarding position. The committee felt the rule change made last year reduced the number of collisions at the goal; this year’s experimental rule calls for the area to be slightly expanded.

The men’s championship also enters a new era, with the announcement earlier this year that the tournament field will expand to 68 teams beginning with the 2011 championship. Under the new format, there will be four first-round games, to be played in Dayton March 15 and 16 and known as the First Four®. It will feature two games involving teams playing for the right to advance as No. 16 seeds that will play top-seeded teams in the second round, and two other games featuring the final four at-large teams selected to the field. Second- and third-round games will be played March 17-20. Host cities are Denver, Colorado; Tampa, Florida; Tucson, Arizona; Washington D.C.; Charlotte, North Carolina; Chicago, Illinois; Cleveland, Ohio; and Tulsa, Oklahoma. Regional sites will conduct games March 24-27 and include Anaheim, California; New Orleans, Louisiana; Newark, New Jersey; and San Antonio, Texas. The 2011 Men’s Final Four will be held April 2 and 4 at Reliant Stadium in Houston. Tournament tickets can be purchased by visiting www.ncaa.com/mbbtickets.

The NCAA reached a deal in April with Turner Sports and CBS worth $10.8 billion over 14 years for the television, Internet and wireless rights to the tournament. As part of the agreement, all 67 games of the championship will be shown live across four national networks—CBS, TBS, TNT and truTV. Previously, fewer than 10 tournament games were guaranteed to have a full national audience.

The bracket, which will be revealed Sunday, March 13 on CBS, is constructed by using the Division I Men’s Basketball Committee’s principles and procedures, which can be located at www.ncaa.com/media. This year’s committee is chaired by Gene Smith of Ohio State. He is joined on the committee by Stan Morrison of University of California, Riverside; Jeff Hathaway of Connecticut, Lynn Hickey of University of Texas at San Antonio, Mike Bobinski of Xavier University, Doug Fullerton of the Big Sky Conference, Dan Beebe of the Big 12 Conference, Ron Wellman of Wake Forest University, Scott Barnes of Utah State, and Steve Orsini of Southern Methodist University.

But before teams start dancing their way through NCAA March Madness®, they will have a little fun with Midnight Madness and the practices this week. The journey on the Road to the Final Four® actually begins in October with this tradition that started nearly 40 years ago when Lefty Driesell had his University of Maryland team go for a run on the campus’ track minutes after midnight on the first day of allowable practices. Approximately 3,000 fans attended the event and it became a tradition that spread across the country and now features a variety of activities to entertain thousands of fans. Many of the practices are televised live locally and carried live via video streaming across the Internet.



Start of Practice and Midnight Madness Celebrations Signal Beginning of 2010-11 Women's College Basketball Season; Regular Season to Begin November 12

Rick Nixon, Associate Director of the Division I Women's Basketball Championship

INDIANAPOLIS - The journey down a road that hundreds of women’s basketball teams hope will culminate with a trip to the Women’s Final Four® has begun, as official practices are being conducted across the country this week. Many women’s programs have started their preparations thanks to a new NCAA rule this year that permits women’s teams to begin practicing 40 days before their first game. Several other teams will gather in arenas late Friday night to celebrate Midnight Madness, the annual celebration that marks the unofficial start to the season.

ESPNU will televise a four-hour ESPNU Midnight Madness special featuring extensive whip-around coverage from top college basketball programs around the nation on October 15 at 9 p.m. ET on ESPNU HD. The University of Connecticut women’s program – the two-time defending national champion, which is riding a 78-game winning streak (10 short of the UCLA men's record for consecutive victories in NCAA Division I basketball) – will be featured along with several men’s programs including defending national champion Duke University as well as Kentucky, Memphis, Gonzaga and Kansas State. The Huskies will be the first women’s team to be showcased during Midnight Madness programming since the show debuted on ESPN platforms in 1993.

The question entering the 2010-11 women’s season centers on Connecticut’s winning streak and which teams will stand between the Huskies and a run at a third straight national championship. Non-conference play will provide an early indication as Connecticut faces Baylor on Nov. 16 in the State Farm Tip-Off Classic in a rematch of a 2010 national semifinal contest. A rematch of the 2010 national championship game will occur when Connecticut plays Stanford on Dec. 30.

Additional non-conference women’s matchups will take place across the country in November and December with key and important games featuring Rutgers-Stanford (Nov. 14), Texas-Stanford (Nov. 28), Oklahoma-Duke (Dec. 5), Tennessee-Baylor (Dec. 14), Stanford-Tennessee (Dec. 19), Xavier-Duke (Dec. 21), Xavier-Stanford (Dec. 28) and Rutgers-Tennessee (Dec. 30) to name just a few.

An experimental rule to be applied during exhibition play will involve the continued effort to examine the distance of the three-point line. The Women’s Basketball Rules Committee has requested institutions to record shooting percentages from both the men’s and women’s lines from one home exhibition game. This information will provide the committee with significant data on how many three-pointers are actually being taken from behind both the men’s and women’s line.

Conference play will feature key matchups as teams vie to win a conference championship and continue to build a resume worthy of earning their way into the championship field. The 64-team women’s tournament field will be announced Monday, March 14 on ESPN. First- and second-round sites include Albuquerque, New Mexico; Columbus, Ohio; Durham, North Carolina; Knoxville, Tennessee; Salt Lake City, Utah; Spokane, Washington; Stanford, California; University Park, Pennsylvania; Auburn, Alabama; Charlottesville, Virginia; Cincinnati, Ohio; College Park, Maryland; Shreveport, Louisiana; Storrs, Connecticut; Waco, Texas; and Wichita, Kansas, with games set for March 19-22. The four regional sites will be Dayton, Ohio; Spokane, Washington; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; and Dallas, Texas on March 26-29. The Women’s Final Four will be April 3 and 5, 2011 at Conseco Fieldhouse in Indianapolis. Tickets for all sites can be purchased by going to www.ncaa.com/tickets.

The women’s bracket is constructed by using the committee’s principles and procedures, which are located at www.ncaa.com/finalfour. Members of the 2010-11 Division I Women’s Basketball Committee include chair Marilyn McNeil of Monmouth University. She is joined on the committee by Sybil Blalock of Mercer University, Greg Christopher of Bowling Green State University, Leslie Claybrook of Rice University, Rich Ensor of the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference, Heather Gores of Gonzaga University, Dru Hancock of the Big 12 Conference, Carolayne Henry of the Mountain West Conference, Chris Massaro of Middle Tennessee State and Kathy Meehan of St. John’s University (New York).

For the ninth consecutive year, ESPN and ESPN2 will broadcast all 63 games of the 2011 Division I Women’s Basketball Championship. The network will offer whip-around-style coverage in high definition. This marks the 16th straight year (since 1996) that ESPN will serve as the championship’s exclusive television home.

Before teams start dancing their way through NCAA March Madness®, they will have a little fun with Midnight Madness and the practices this week. The journey down the Road to the Women’s Final Four® begins in October with this tradition that started nearly 40 years ago when Lefty Driesell had his University of Maryland men’s team go for a run on the campus’ track minutes after midnight on the first day of allowable practices. Approximately 3,000 fans attended the event and it became a tradition that spread across the country and now features a variety of activities to entertain thousands of men’s and women’s basketball fans. In addition to ESPNU coverage, many of the practices are televised live locally and carried live via video streaming across the Internet.