OMAHA, Nebraska – Coaches of two of the best teams in the NCAA Division I volleyball tournament complained Thursday of the setup of the event next week, with Welly Kelly Sheffield saying she could continue to give an unfavorable light on the treatment of female athletes. governing body of university sport.
The NCAA, as it did with the NCAA men’s and women’s basketball tournaments, moved the volleyball tournament to a single location as protection against COVID-19. The game starts on Wednesday.
The tournament was moved from the fall due to the pandemic and will be held at the CHI Health Center with 48 teams instead of the usual 64. The first three rounds will be played on the courts installed in a convention hall. The rest will be played in the adjacent arena.
ESPN will broadcast the first two rounds on its digital platforms without advertisers or game-by-game analysts.
“I really hope they look at it more closely. I have a feeling it could explode as much as what weight room things did in women’s basketball,” Sheffield said, referring to criticism of the NCAA for not initially providing a full weight -training area for women’s teams. “It is impressive that they are not [having] a dissemination team. To me, it’s lazy … to just watch the silence while watching the NCAA tournament games. “
National semifinal and championship matches will be televised on ESPN2.
Sheffield, whose badgers are No. 1 No. 1 after finishing second to Stanford in 2019, said the lack of advertisers for the first two rounds diminishes the tournament.
“It’s going to be like a kind of high school offering,” he said. “It has to feel special. For a lot of people, it won’t be like that.”
The NCAA said in a statement that ESPN is not required to produce any first- and second-round coverage and that COVID-19 restrictions create technical challenges.
John Cook of Nebraska, whose team is No. 5 in the standings, said coaches are concerned about using the convention center. There will be four competition tracks distributed in two rooms, as well as eight practice tracks in a third room.
Four games will be played simultaneously in the first and second rounds, similar to a high school club tournament, Cook said.
There will be no locker rooms available at the start of the tournament due to COVID-19 protocols.
“Volleyball players warm up and then change into uniforms,” Cook said. “How does this work if you’re in the middle of convention hall C?”
The NCAA said teams will have safe areas to change clothes.
“Contrary to reports, players were never expected to change their clothes on the bench,” the NCAA said.
Cook said that instead of playing at the convention center, the NCAA should hold early games at Creighton’s Sokol Arena, Nebraska-Omaha’s Baxter Arena and Nebraska’s Devaney Center in Lincoln.
“This is a lot more enjoyable than an NCAA tournament because they are three fantastic facilities [and better] that the setup they have now, which is in a convention center, there are no locker rooms, no bathrooms, “Cook said.” It will be interesting how all this comes out. “