Conference Tournament Dates and Links

[DefenseBB]

As we fast approach the end of the regular season, here is the list of dates, locations, sessions, seating capacity, last 5 years of attendance and the website links. Also is the mred bracket maker to see projected seeding that is interactive.

I do think this year we shall see all the conferences break their 5 year averages for any number of reasons. The Big East average is really the past 5 years of fans for UConn conferences (2 years of Big East, 3 years of AAC). The 2021 conference tournaments were limited and are excluded so 4 of the 5 are '23. '22, '20,'19. '18. The Big 12 Tournament was a week after everyone else in 2020 and was cancelled so their 4 years includes '23. '22, '19. '18, '17.

My prediction is the Big 10 will surpass the SEC this year and both will have great turnouts with an average of 7,500+
I do think the other 4 conferences will beat their 5 year averages but not by as much. I will be curious to the PAC 12 as this is their last year and given how strong the conference is top to 10 (face it ASU and Oregon are brutal), I hope fans turn out. for flight information contact @Plebe I hear is hosting a bash for all BY fans who come to Vegas!

Conf	Tms	Dates	Location	Sessions	Arena	5 yr Ave	Link
SEC	14​	Mar 6-10	Bon Secours, Greenville, SC	7 Sessions	17,000	6,608	Championship - Women's Basketball
Big10	14​	Mar 6-10	Target, Minneapolois	7 Sessions	19,000	5,721	2024 TIAA Big Ten Women's Basketball Tournament Central - Big Ten Conference
BigEast	11​	Mar 8-11	Mohegan	5 Sessions	10,000	5,364	2024 BIG EAST Women's Basketball Tournament - Big East Conference
ACC	15​	Mar 6-10	Greensboro	7 Sessions	23,000	5,949	2024 Ally ACC Women's Basketball Tournament - Atlantic Coast Conference
PAC12	12​	Mar 6-10	MGM, Las Vegas	6 Sessions	15,000	4,584	2024 Pac-12 Women's Basketball Tournament
Big12	14​	Mar 7-12	T-Mobile Center, KC, Mo	7 Sessions	19,252	3,914	2024 Phillips 66 Big 12 Women's Basketball Championship - Big 12 Conference
mred Bracket	Women's BB	Power 6				mred's Big East WBB Tournament Seeding Tiebreaker (notnothing.net)

 

[nwhoopfan]

None of those average attendance figures are eye popping. I felt a little bad when I first saw the Pac 12's numbers, but none of the other conferences are that much better.

 

[azfan]

I am headed to LV for the final Pac 12 tournament... Looking forward to seeing all the games the semis (the 8th) and final,(10th) should be grand. Guess I'll drive back to Flagstaff on the off day.

Then after the final (Stanford v Oregon State) I'm staying to see if the Lopes can best Cal Baptist for the bid, then watch Lindy lead her squad over Boise State for the MW bid.

 

[nwhoopfan]

I am headed to LV for the final Pac 12 tournament... Looking forward to seeing all the games the semis (the 8th) and final,(10th) should be grand. Guess I'll drive back to Flagstaff on the off day.

Then after the final (Stanford v Oregon State) I'm staying to see if the Lopes can best Cal Baptist for the bid, then watch Lindy lead her squad over Boise State for the MW bid.

You're gonna be busy! Vegas is one stop shopping for western conferences' tourneys. Not gonna check out Gonzaga wiping the floor with the rest of the WCC?


edit--I will hazard a guess that not all of the tourney finals will end up with the teams you would most expect to get there

 

[KnightBridgeAZ]

I am headed to LV for the final Pac 12 tournament... Looking forward to seeing all the games the semis (the 8th) and final,(10th) should be grand. Guess I'll drive back to Flagstaff on the off day.

Then after the final (Stanford v Oregon State) I'm staying to see if the Lopes can best Cal Baptist for the bid, then watch Lindy lead her squad over Boise State for the MW bid.

Enjoy. We had tickets but sold them, we traveled a week in January, almost a week in February, going for over 2 weeks beginning late April and after 2 days home another week taking my 40 year old nephew on a birthday trip (he has never had an opportunity to travel). And a 3 week vacation in July.

The thing is, we don't travel that much. Never that much. We just couldn't manage to do Vegas as well. Not financially and not energy wise. A lot of things just coming together.

 

[azfan]

Enjoy. We had tickets but sold them, we traveled a week in January, almost a week in February, going for over 2 weeks beginning late April and after 2 days home another week taking my 40 year old nephew on a birthday trip (he has never had an opportunity to travel). And a 3 week vacation in July.

The thing is, we don't travel that much. Never that much. We just couldn't manage to do Vegas as well. Not financially and not energy wise. A lot of things just coming together.

I will. I also rarely if ever travel. We are home bodies. This was a bucket list event in as it is the farewell for the Pac-12 I decided to make it a three conference tournament event.

BTW.. I see that the AD position has been filled down in Tucson. Looks like an outstanding hire.

I envy the way UArizona in spite of all of their current financial difficulties completed this search. Michael Crow and his cronies are definitely extending the effort to find a replacement for Ray "I love Herm Edwards" Anderson.

As the search enters month 6 the three finalists include two real head scratchers and one dream.

ASU ATHLETICS: Three potential candidates for Sun Devils’ athletic director

Arizona State University President Michael Crow will look to hire next athletic director

www.houseofsparky.com

Graham Rossini is the current executive senior associate athletic director and chief business officer at ASU. Graham has been with Arizona State athletics since 2021,


Great idea.....pick someone attached to the Crow administration... Just check out that track record.

Or ... Another ASU retreat...or should I say retread

Rocky Harris is the current United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee as the chief of sport and athlete services and served as CEO of USA Triathlon for five years.

But before getting involved heavily in olympics and and triathlon, Harris was chief operating officer at Arizona State athletics from 2012-2017.

Or.....wait for it....the current Alabama AD. ( yes, an ASU alum, but .... Really. If Byrnes is leaving Alabama..there must be a reason.)

Oy...

 

[KnightBridgeAZ]

You couldn't do better than Byrne. But I would fall over in a faint if he leaves Alabama. I'm not sure there is an "up" from there, but I'm fairly certain it ain't in Arizona.

Oddly, what I liked about Byrne - he sincerely glad handed the fans at events, kept his hiring plans top secret (if you mentioned you were interviewed you were removed from consideration), and he really cared - others for some obscure reason (friends of ours) despised. I repeat, I don't expect him up there, but you definitely would have one of the best, in my opinion. He was called Saint Greg around Tucson.

 

[Mzonefan]

The Big Ten sold out the entire tournament this week. Clark continues to sell out arenas.

 

[triaddukefan]

Two small corrections. I don't think Greenville's arena seats 17,000. Maybe around 15-16 max. Greensboro Coliseum capacity is down to 22,000 or so, but they use the big black curtains to reduce capacity for WBB to around 11,500.

 

[DefenseBB]

so with the conference tournaments less than a week away and much news about various aspects, let me give a few tidbits.

#1. To my fine ACC acolyte, @triaddukefan, I agree that Greensboro no longer holds 23,000 (like their website says) and I could find references to only 20,000 and I will also concede that many of us have seen that gawd awful curtain up that further restricts seating. I could not get any estimate to validate or refute your 11,500 assertion. What I can say is the ACC has averaged only 5,949 over the 5 years of attendance (rather putrid, sorry ).
#2. The SEC has stated that the Greenville Arena (Bon Secours) will hold 15,000 for the tournament. This tournament has averaged 6,600 over the last 5 years (including 8,257 last year) and I do think this year that number will jump to close to 9,500 with some unexpected teams playing well (Vandy, Auburn).
#3. The Big Ten announced all 7 sessions as sell outs and that's without Iowa playing the 1st two days of this tournament! That is 109,000 fans this year whereas last year that was 47,923 so very, very impressive. They will average about 15,572 fans per session.
Last year they average 6,846 to lead all conference tournaments and their 5 year average is 5,721. Yes, this is solely attributable to Caitlin.
#4. This is the last year of the PAC12 and sadly the best top to bottom conference in WCBB will also have the poorest attended conference tournament of the P6. Last year was 4,196, 5 year average was 4,584 and despite @Plebe not going this year, the PAC will come close to 5,000 fans per session as my prediction. While nice to see, a far cry from what the numbers should be considering the quality of basketball and the end of an era.
#5. The Big East Tournament has obviously seen a huge growth in their attendance due to UConn coming back and this year should see an increase over the 6,526 fans last year. My guess is the BET will average 7,400 for the 5 sessions.

Overall there has been a resurgence in attendance as there are both star players (Clark, Bueckers, Brink, Watkins, Hildago) and parity in these P6 conferences where only the SEC and Big East with probable foregone conclusive title winners-SC/UConn.

	2023​			2023
Conf	Rank	Sessions	5 yr	Ave	Total
SEC	1	7	6,608	8,257​	57,801​
Big10	2	7	5,721	6,846​	47,923​
BigEast	3	5	5,364	6,526​	32,631​
ACC	4	8	5,949	5,790​	44,391​
PAC12	6	6	5,721	4,196​	25,176​
Big12	5	3	3,914	5,077​	25,385​

 

[DefenseBB]

Ok, with the ACC, SEC, PAC 12 and Big Ten finishing yesterday, here is the update:

The Big Ten as we had heard was already a sell out for all 7 sessions. A whopping 129,515 fans came out or an average of 18,502 per session. Truly remarkable!

The SEC drew 60,352 which from my records is at least the most going back to 2002. An average of 8,622 which beat the 8,257 above.

The ACC drew 67,081 for it's sessions or an average of 9,102 fans per session. A big jump over 5,790. Kudos to them. However considering it is a North Carolina based conference, the biggest session was the day 3 1st quarter-final with ND-Louisville and VaTech-MIami which drew 15,202. The other quarter final with NC State-Duke and Syracuse-FSU only drew 7,720.

The PAC 12 ended its WCBB on a high note with 25,395 for an average of 5,079-it's highest since 2020.

The Big East finishes tonight and are ahead of last years numbers. My guess is the total will be 36,500+ and 7,300+ average

The Big 12 has 2 sessions to go and are lagging behind last year with only 4,506 per session vs. 4,801 prior to the semi-finals. The conference did have to add 2 more sessions this year due to the participants from 10 to 14. Next year will have 16. My guess is this conference will not beat last years.

Overall, 5 of the 6 conferences are up with both the Big Ten and ACC showing a huge jump in numbers and the SEC showing a nice a slight 4.4% increase. While the PAC 12 had a nice bump from last year, this conference still lagged behind all the others which considering how good it is this year is kind of sad. Thanks for the memories.

 

[Plebe]

Sun Belt final between Marshall and James Madison in overtime right now.

(Didn't see the new weekly thread up yet so I just dropped this somewhere.)

 

[triaddukefan]

Sun Belt final between Marshall and James Madison in overtime right now.

(Didn't see the new weekly thread up yet so I just dropped this somewhere.)

Marshall in the tournament for the first time since 1997.

 

[Plebe]

Okay this Sun Belt game was WILD.

Marshall took 46 more shots than JMU did.
JMU had 39 turnovers and Marshall had 32 offensive rebounds.
And the game still went to overtime.

Also, 63 total fouls called and 83 free throws taken.

 

[azfan]

Okay this Sun Belt game was WILD.

Marshall took 46 more shots than JMU did.
JMU had 39 turnovers and Marshall had 32 offensive rebounds.
And the game still went to overtime.

Also, 63 total fouls called and 83 free throws taken.

A Record?

 

[Plebe]

A Record?

Which part?

Christy Thomaskutty (excellent commentator btw) said she had never seen a game with such a discrepancy in shot attempts go to overtime.

 

[azfan]

4 minutes to tip in MW game 2 - CSU v Nevada (led of course by former Sun Devil Amana Levens).

Hofschild has an infectious smile. High fives everyone including student interns after shoot around.

 

[azfan]

In contrast..... 1 foul in the first quarter of CSU V ASU alum led Nevada. I guess Amanda didn't internalize her time in Tempe with CTT

 

[nwhoopfan]

South Dakota St. and North Dakota St., the top 2 seeds in the Summit, have advanced to the Championship Game. I want to throw out the record books for the border war but @triaddukefan won't let me.

 

[azfan]

In contrast..... 1 foul in the first quarter of CSU V ASU alum led Nevada. I guess Amanda didn't internalize her time in Tempe with CTT

Fouls up 600% in the second quarter.

In the battle of #4-Mckenna leads 15-14

 

[nwhoopfan]

Santa Clara led Portland 30-18 at the half in a WCC semifinal. Pilots came storming back to take a 6 point lead, almost blew it at the end, but hung on 63-61. UP gets Gonzaga in the Championship Game.

 

[Plebe]

Santa Clara led Portland 30-18 at the half in a WCC semifinal. Pilots came storming back to take a 6 point lead, almost blew it at the end, but hung on 63-61. UP gets Gonzaga in the Championship Game.

They call it March Madness for a reason, folks! The 3 seed with a stunning upset of the 2 seed.

Only one more chance for your jinx on Gonzaga to manifest. The Pilots have the Zags right where they want them.

 

[nwhoopfan]

They call it March Madness for a reason, folks! The 3 seed with a stunning upset of the 2 seed.

Only one more chance for your jinx on Gonzaga to manifest. The Pilots have the Zags right where they want them.

The Zags had about a 100 turnovers today, gave up an 18-2 run at the end, and still won comfortably.

Pilots have gotten them a couple times in the WCC tourney in recent years IIRC...but I don't think this year it's going to happen.

 

[azfan]

Wandering Lobos 4 min from trip off against Aztecs. All the red blending into the seats in the house that Tark built.


The student in the Aztec mascot costume must be at least 6'5''

Off topic.....latest Creme shows the kitties v Miss State in the play in. Would that game be in Mississippi?

 

[Plebe]

Off topic.....latest Creme shows the kitties v Miss State in the play in. Would that game be in Mississippi?

No, each of the First Four games is at the home court of whichever top 16 seed is hosting that section of the bracket. So a neutral court game for those teams.