Louisville, Vanderbilt will host first rounds of womens NCAA basketball

Anticipated No. 1 seeds UConn, UCLA, South Carolina and Texas were chosen as hosts for the first two rounds of the NCAA Women’s Tournament on Saturday.

For the first time, the NCAA revealed the 16 teams that will be hosting on opening weekend a day before the bracket is revealed. The list of schools was in alphabetical order.

Other hosts were Duke, Iowa, Louisville, LSU, Michigan, Minnesota, North Carolina, Ohio State, Oklahoma, TCU, Vanderbilt and West Virginia.

By announcing it a day early it gives schools an extra day to sell tickets, broadcast partner ESPN to start to move its equipment to the locations and the NCAA to get its marketing materials to sites. The NCAA has done this before in other sports such as baseball.

The regional rounds will be played at two neutral sites for the fourth straight year. Fort Worth, Texas, will host half of the Sweet 16, and Sacramento, California, will host the other eight teams.

The Final Four will be played in Phoenix on April 3 and the NCAA championship game is two days later.



(AP Photo Jessica Hill)