The first thing in 2009 to think about is…
Feb
2009
Yes, it is never too early to think about the 2009 National Championship. This year marks a change as the Men’s and Women’s Tournament moves to San Antonio, Texas after several years in Greensboro and Orlando. The San Antonio Sports Foundation led the charge to get the event in town, as San Antonio was named a “Championship City” by the NCAA. Several other NCAA Championship events will be hosted by the city this year.
Continuing a good idea from last season, the Tournament remains slated for the first weekend in December as opposed to the past practice of scheduling it over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend. In 2008, the schedule change was announced late in the season as a result of the huge travel rush during Thanksgiving. This busy travel weekend in addition to the cutbacks in schedules by the airlines made it difficult and expensive for the NCAA to get the teams to Greensboro.
Hopefully we’ll see some warmer weather in San Antonio this December. In 2008, the portable heaters were working overtime to keep everyone warm in the 42 degree chill. Obviously not the norm in North Carolina in early December.
Oh, and the season kicks off in 6 months and 6 days…
February 20th, 2009 at 9:37 am
Jim, in that same press release from the NCAA is announcement of the realignment of the regions and the formation of an eighth region for the women.
Quote–
“In preparation for the realignment, the committee discussed how to rank teams within each region and decided to continue to rank the top 15 percent, but increase the minimum number of teams a region can rank from four teams to six. With the addition in the number of women’s regions, the committee also changed the officials’ rotation to include all eight regions instead of seven.”
Here is the link to that release…
http://www.ncaa.org/wps/ncaa?ContentID=46013
If anyone has actual re-alignments, please email me.
Thanks