The NCAA has egg on its face.
Just before tipoff between Texas and NC State in the women’s Elite Eight, the NCAA was made aware that there was a discrepancy between the distances of the 3-point lines on each side of the March Madness court at Moda Center in Portland.
The news was first relayed on air by ESPN prior to the start of the game, which went on as scheduled with head coaches Wes Moore and Vic Schaefer agreeing to play in order not to delay the game, the outlet reported.
The NCAA confirmed it in a statement released during halftime between Texas and NC State, though it provided little detail about how the issue came to be in the first place.
“The NCAA was notified today that the three-point lines on the court at Moda Center in Portland are not the same distances,” the statement read. “The two head coaches were made aware of the discrepancy and elected to play a complete game on the court as is, rather than correcting the court and delaying the game. The court will be corrected before tomorrow’s game in Portland.”
Portland is one of two regional round sites for this year’s women’s tournament, with the other being MVP Arena in Albany.
What the NCAA did not reveal was how the error had occurred or why it took so long for anyone to notice.
Games had been conducted there all weekend and photos from The Athletic’s Nicole Auerbach appeared to show that the discrepancy with the 3-point line had existed during Saturday night’s 53-45 UConn win over Duke.
ESPN reported that the court had been the same one that had been used all weekend by the NCAA for Sweet 16 and Elite Eight games.
“Both Wes Moore and Vic Schaefer came out to the floor to take a look at it,” ESPN’s Courtney Lyle told viewers on air. “They asked for the NCAA to measure and they did that. They simply measured from the baseline to the top of the 3-point line and found there was a discrepancy on one end of the floor from the other.”
Cameras caught both coaches examining the floors, with one clip showing Moore placing one foot in front of the other in a straight line in order to ascertain the distance.
It remained unclear how severe the discrepancy was between the 3-point lines.
The women’s basketball 3-point line is supposed to be 22 feet, 1¾ inches from the basket, which it was moved to prior to the 2021-22 season.
The NC State game with Texas was the fifth of six scheduled to take place at Moda Center over the holiday weekend.
