beknighted
Joined: 11 Nov 2004
Posts: 11050
Location: Lost in D.C.
Back to top |
 Posted: 03/31/10 11:11 pm ::: News from Indianapolis |
Reply  |
|
Indianapolis (AF) - The NCAA Division I Women’s Basketball Committee, in an effort to bring parity to women’s college basketball, has announced that, effective with the high school class of 2011, it will institute a draft for incoming freshmen who wish to obtain scholarships from Division I teams.
The draft, to be held the last Sunday in September of each year, will have two rounds and the top 50 schools in the final RPI from the previous season will participate. Any player chosen in the draft who does not sign a national letter of intent with the school that drafts her will be ineligible to play Division I basketball for two years.
“We just wanted to do something to make our tournament as exciting as the men’s tournament,” said Jane Meyer of the University of Iowa, the chair of the committee. “Look at their Final Four – they have two five seeds and just a single one, and eight of the teams in the Sweet Sixteen had five seeds or worse. You never have any idea who’s going to win there. The best we could do this year was a four seed, and we have two ones. Some years in our tournament, you might as well give the top eight seeds a bye to the Elite Eight, unless of course one of them is Ohio State. We wanted to fix that.”
The draft will operate similarly to the NFL draft, with placement determined by final results. Any teams in the RPI top 50 that do not make the NCAA tournament will draft first, in reverse order of RPI, followed by the teams that lose in the first round, then the teams that lose in each successive round, with the national champion drafting last. According to the committee, this year that means that Illinois State University, the University of Maryland and Kansas University will have the first three choices, and that the University of Connecticut will draft last. When asked whether it was premature to presume that Connecticut would draft last, a committee source said “You’re kidding, right?”
In response to press questions about the fairness of limiting the draft to the top 50 RPI teams, Jaclyn Silar of Duke University, a committee member and former chair said “We don’t think any team that finishes outside the top 50 has a real chance to win a championship any time soon. Honestly, we thought of cutting it off after the top 25, but decided to be conservative. Heck, we only pick teams below the RPI top 50 for the tournament if we need to fill out the bracket.”
During the press conference, Meyer noted that players could be drafted this year regardless of any previous verbal commitments they might have made. “Verbal commitments never have been binding anyway,” she said. “Next year we won’t allow them at all.” Meyer also explained that a player who is not drafted will be free to sign with any school. “We expect that this actually will open up opportunities for players outside the top 100 to get scholarships from schools that might not otherwise have considered them in the past,” she said. “Imagine how much fun it will be for the 150th-ranked player to get a chance to practice at Tennessee or UConn.”
Committee members said that they had been working on the parity issue for years, and briefly thought it had been addressed. Among the techniques they used were incentives to AAU coaches to steer players away from traditional powers like the University of Tennessee and Connecticut, whisper campaigns about certain coaches being too demanding and efforts to convince the WNBA to permit underclass players to be drafted. “2005 and 2006, we thought things were going well, but then look what happened the last four years,” Silar said. According to Meyer, the consecutive championships by Tennessee and the return of Connecticut to championship form convinced the committee that more drastic measures were necessary. “The problem,” she said, “is that girls want to go to programs with the best chance to win the championship and to programs where they will grow as individuals. Too many of them are willing to give up playing time and individual glory for those goals. They’re just too mature. If they were more like the boys, and fixated on playing time, they’d spread out a lot more.”
There will be limited exceptions to the draft rules. Most notably, any player who qualifies for admission to an Ivy League school or Northwestern University will be able to play for that school regardless of whether she is drafted. Meyer said that Stanford, which is known not to offer scholarships until players actually are admitted under the university’s normal academic standards, was excluded from the exception because “Tara’s doing fine.” When queried about the inclusion of Northwestern, which has high academic standards but awards athletic scholarships, Meyer said, “We just like Joe McKeown.” After hearing this news, Vanderbilt head coach Melanie Balcomb exclaimed, “What about us? Vanderbilt is the Harvard of the South!”
Reaction among other coaches was mixed. Tennessee coach Pat Summitt, during a break from setting her team’s spring practice schedule, responded that “Well, at least something good might come from losing early in the tournament this year.” Beth Burns, coach of San Diego State, the team ranked 51st in RPI, was reported to be asking for a recount, while Illinois State coach Robin Pingeton said “Looks like I’m going to have to adjust my scouting this summer,” and then laughed maniacally. Rutgers University coach C. Vivian Stringer said “Maybe this way I finally can get a real center.” Connecticut coach Geno Auriemma simply snarled and stalked away.
Legal experts consulted following the press conference expressed concern that the new draft would violate antitrust law. However, sources within the NCAA pointed to Section 10402(g)(4)(Q)(xi) of the health care bill signed by President Obama on March 23, which specifically permits the Division I Women’s Basketball Committee to institute a draft. They also noted that the same provision institutes the ten-second line in women’s college basketball, starting with the 2010-11 season, requires Ben & Jerry’s to offer Free Cone Day once a month and, in an amendment added by Senator Al Franken (D-MN), declares that Rush Limbaugh “is a big fat idiot.”
Following the press conference, ESPN announced that the draft would be televised in its entirety on ESPNU. Rosalyn Durant, ESPNU vice president and general manager, said “We have a pretty full fall schedule with field hockey, Division III football and our new coverage of Frisbee golf, but we can make this work. We’re very excited about the first-ever college basketball draft.” Durant said that ESPNU has assigned studio host Trey Wingo to the event, in hopes that he will learn to pronounce the names of more players, with analysis by Doris Burke, Beth Mowins, Debbie Antonelli and Glenn Nelson, who reportedly works for something called HoopGurlz. Rebecca Lobo will not participate, but will tweet randomly before, during and after the draft. Antonelli said that she hopes that this assignment will make her “the Mel Kiper, Jr. of women’s basketball.” Mr. Kiper was unavailable for comment on this development, but he did indicate that it looked like Notre Dame has a good sophomore right tackle who could be drafted by Tampa Bay in 2012.
|
|
thesixthwoman
Joined: 25 Sep 2004
Posts: 6296
Location: NYC
Back to top |
| Posted: 04/01/10 2:38 am ::: |
Reply |
|
| Quote: |
| Some years in our tournament, you might as well give the top eight seeds a bye to the Elite Eight, unless of course one of them is Ohio State. We wanted to fix that.” |
| Quote: |
| There will be limited exceptions to the draft rules. Most notably, any player who qualifies for admission to an Ivy League school or Northwestern University will be able to play for that school regardless of whether she is drafted. Meyer said that Stanford, which is known not to offer scholarships until players actually are admitted under the university’s normal academic standards, was excluded from the exception because “Tara’s doing fine.” When queried about the inclusion of Northwestern, which has high academic standards but awards athletic scholarships, Meyer said, “We just like Joe McKeown.” After hearing this news, Vanderbilt head coach Melanie Balcomb exclaimed, “What about us? Vanderbilt is the Harvard of the South!” |
BWAhaha! This whole graf is perfect. Northwestern. Perfect. Stanford. Perfect. Vandy =Harvard of the South!?!  Do they really think that? 
|
|
