At ACC tournament, the growth of women's basketball had a front-row seat
Plus: Quotes of the tournament!
I spent most of the last week at one of my favorite places on earth: The ACC women’s basketball tournament. It was hosted in my hometown of Greensboro, North Carolina for the 24th year, and I must say, there is nothing quite like having the best basketball in the world coming to your backyard.
The first thing I noticed when I arrived for the first round on Wednesday was that I didn’t have as good of a view as I was used to! This year, the media seats were behind three rows of court-side seats. Last year, there was only one row of court-side seats in front of the media seats. Two years ago — and when I was at the Greensboro Coliseum for the 2019 NCAA regionals — the media seats were directly on the court.
Now, there are few things as annoying as a media member complaining about seating, I know. And I promise, that’s not what I’m doing. I didn’t see the seating arrangement as a sign of inconvenience; rather, it was a sign of excitement for the sport. Because throughout the tournament, the three rows of court-side seats were always filled with enthusiastic fans.
The expanded court-side seating was a project spearheaded by Jackie Carson, who was hired as the ACC’s senior associate commissioner of women’s basketball last June. Carson has extensive experience as a player and coach — she played at Furman from 1996 to 2000, and was the head coach of Furman women’s basketball from 2010 to 2023.
When Carson took the job with the ACC, her goal was to take what she considered the premiere women’s basketball tournament in the premiere conference in the country and improve upon it.
“I think kind-of like a recruiter still — if you do the same thing you did last year, then you're gonna get the same result you always have. So we said, let's try something different, let's see what we get out of it,” Carson told Power Plays.
Carson wanted the fan experience at the ACC women’s tournament to be closer to the experience at an NBA arena. So she set out to add more court-side seating and an expanded hospitality area on the baseline.
Last year, there were only 60 court-side seats available for the women’s tournament. But this year, they increased that number to 174. And all 174 seats sold out immediately for every session.
“It was hugely successful,” she said.
Carson also focused on improving the player experience, adding a players lounge where players could make friendship bracelets, take selfies, play arcade games, and even pose in a throne.
“We wanted to make it the grandest scale of all. Women's basketball is growing. And so we have to make sure we are elevating the tournament to be according to what we got,” she said.
The attendance didn’t quite break records the way the Big Ten tournament did, but the atmosphere was great all week, and thanks to closing off the upper deck, it always felt full. More than 67,000 fans attended, the most since 2009. The ACC also celebrated a big milestone during the tournament, when it became the first conference to surpass 1.5 million total women’s basketball tournament attendees.
Things are moving in the right direction, for sure. There’s still room for improvement, though. It would certainly help excitement within the state if the Duke and North Carolina programs could return to elite status — both Virginia Tech and N.C. State have been doing a good job attracting their die-hard fans to the stands, and it would be nice if they had other local-ish teams pulling their weight. Also, with Notre Dame’s Hannah Hidalgo being one of the best players in the nation as a freshman, it will be interesting to see if her star can rise enough over the next couple of years to attract casual fans to the tournament, the way Caitlin Clark has helped the Big Ten. The potential is certainly there, and I believe Carson is ready to harness it.
The future location of the tournament is a bit unclear, though. It will definitely be held in Greensboro for the 25th year in 2025, and then in 2027 it will be held at the Spectrum Center in Charlotte, North Carolina, which is where the ACC is now headquartered. But the location for the 2026 tournament and 2028 and beyond is unknown at the time. Carson said Greensboro is definitely in the mix, but that the ACC will cast a wide net and be open to moving the tournament outside of North Carolina, especially given the ACC is expanding this year, adding one school from Texas – Southern Methodist University – and two from California – Stanford and the University of California, Berkeley.
I asked if the goal was to have the women’s tournament move to new arenas every year, the way the men’s ACC basketball tournament rotates through different sites, including the Spectrum Center in Charlotte, Capital One Arena in Washington, D.C., Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York, and the Greensboro Coliseum. But Carson said that wasn’t her goal.
“We don't mimic a men's model. We're not men, we don't grow in the same way as men's basketball, so we're not trying to jump city to city; that that doesn't make sense for us,” she said.
“But maybe looking at different markets to see, do we need to switch it up? Do we need to stay in one place? We're looking at all the angles, because we want to make the best experience. We're looking at where fan bases really support women's basketball. Greensboro is gonna compete with everyone every single time because what they've done for this tournament, so nothing is off the table.”
Quotes of the tournament
Here are some of my favorite moments from the press room.
First, we’ve got Niele Ivey after Notre Dame won the championship with a 55-51 victory over N.C. State:
Q. You're the first Black woman to coach a team to the ACC championship after Kenny Brooks became the first Black coach period to do it last year. Black coaches are leading the way in this conference right now. What does it mean to you to be a part of that legacy and that kind of progress, and what message do you hope this sends to athletic directors across the country?
NIELE IVEY: I mean, that's a huge honor. It's a huge blessing. I love being a pioneer, breaking barriers. That's really important to me.
Again, I'm grateful. I wouldn't have this opportunity if it wasn't for Notre Dame, Jack, and this group. I'm just grateful. You don't get a chance to be in this position without someone believing in you, and Jack Swarbrick has believed in me from day one to just having this opportunity.
Representation matters, and for me to be able to represent -- being a Black woman, I think it's great for inspiration, it's great for young girls to see, and hopefully it gives more people of color and diversity more opportunities to lead programs.
I also loved Coach Ivey talking about how Hannah Hidalgo is handling the attention on her.
Q. How do you think she's handled all the attention that's gone with accolades and people talking about the women's game and who's sort of the next big thing with Caitlin Clark heading out soon? Hannah has gotten a lot of attention. How do you think she's handled that?
NIELE IVEY: I think she's handled it really well. Credit her family and the foundation. She's very humble. She loves this game so she just wants to compete, so everything that's coming her way is because of what she's been able to accomplish and do.
It's not something that she seeks. It's just she has, like she says, she's different. She has a light about her. I think she's doing a great job of managing it. Again, she's got great leaders and she also has position coach Charel Allen and myself that try to help her through it, because it is a lot for a freshman, and I think she's done a phenomenal job of handling it.
Here’s N.C. State head coach Wes Moore and players after their semifinal win over Florida State, talking about how they prepared for the game given the tight turnaround. I thought it was an interesting look at what goes on behind the scenes, as well as how Moore has adjusted as a coach over the past few years:
Q. Duke and Florida State play pretty different styles of basketball, so from the final buzzer of Duke to tip-off at Florida State, what does that look like preparation-wise to get ready to play such a different type of game?
WES MOORE: Yeah, as a staff, obviously we have each team assigned to an assistant coach, so they get a head start.
As soon as we won yesterday, the assistants stayed to see if they could get calls and things like that. Myself and a couple others went back to the hotel. Last night I watched the scout that our assistant had put together, so they'll give me like 80 something clips and I'll try to trim it down to 60 something to show the team, which is probably still too much. But late last night, I don't know what time it is, 9:30.
ZOE BROOKS: 10:15, and we didn't get out until 10:45.
WES MOORE: Was it worth it?
ZOE BROOKS: Yes.
WES MOORE: It took us a while to put it together. We played at 5:00 yesterday and got out of here, so we watched film at 10:15, and this morning before pregame we had a court taped on the floor and we walked through all their offensive sets and then we watched a different set of film from the first time we played them. So you cram it in.
In the past, me, I was a hard-core old guy. We've played in the championship game here before at 12:00 noon and I'd have them in the gym at 7:00 a.m. This team doesn't respond that way. They're better off being rested. Do a walk-through at the hotel, watch the film a couple of times, and let's go. I'd rather have energy right now than maybe an extra little bit of preparation.
Probably more than you wanted to know, but there you go.
Moving on to Virginia Tech, Kenny Brooks was not going to be transparent about the Kitley injury — and I don’t blame him, given how it would negatively impact their NCAA seeding if it came out that the injury was severe. Here he is when a reporter tried to get more information out of him following their loss in the semifinals to Notre Dame:
Q. Kenny, what is the exact nature of Liz's injury, and how realistic is it that she could come back this month or not?
KENNY BROOKS: Do you want me to say something? Liz is not available for this tournament, and we wanted to make sure that her health and safety was the first thing that was on our minds.
We'll reevaluate her situation when the time is right.
She's doing great with her rehab. She rehabs three times a day. When the time is right, we'll see what she can do.
Q. Do you have some hope, I guess --
KENNY BROOKS: Georgia played really hard tonight. I thought Olivia Summiel played, and there's nothing more I can tell you other than what we said earlier. We're not going to do anything differently than what I said earlier, is just to not play her this tournament, which we didn't, and then we will reevaluate her situation.
Of course, the tournament wasn’t all bad for Virginia Tech. They did have a big win over Miami in the quarterfinals without Kitley. Here’s Brooks on how the Rose Micheaux and Clara Strack played in Kitley’s absence:
Q. You got great production out of the 5 spot with Micheaux and Strack. How proud are you of them?
KENNY BROOKS: Yeah, they did a really good job. Rose has been a professional all year long. Obviously she was out of the rotation for a while, and she came to practice every day with a smile on her face and just continuing to try to work hard and was waiting for her opportunity, and I thought today was that opportunity. I thought she gave us some very good minutes.
Clara -- and I say this affectionately and I love her to death; she's our baby; she's the baby of the group. She just turned 18 maybe a month or two ago -- I really thought I was going to redshirt her this year, but she came out today and she just worked.
She just worked, and she wasn't perfect, man, but I think she showed us glimpses of what she's going to be in the future, and it's very exciting for us because she's very talented. She's not scared of the moment. Sometimes we don't even know if she knows she's in the moment, but we'll take that because it allowed her to be able to produce for us, and I'm very, very proud of her.
Speaking of Kitley, I absolutely loved Miami head coach Katie Meier’s description of her game:
Q. You lost in Blacksburg in January; what do you need to do better tomorrow in the rematch, and given how big a game Kitley had against you in January, how huge a difference will that be if she's not out there tomorrow?
KATIE MEIER: It's funny because, first of all, we walked past Virginia Tech on the way out, and we just have so much respect for the program, the coaching staffs, the players. I saw Liz and just smiled at her and said, hope you're doing all right.
I hope she's available because I hope that for them and for her. But if you think I've processed that we still won this game and who we're playing tomorrow yet, I really haven't. But I'm sure my assistant coaches are doing that right now.
Liz is just so -- I said this when we -- the time per touch. You never see a post player with such a short time per touch, and that's kind of a soccer term that's become a basketball term. You can do whatever scheme you want to, but she thinks and moves the ball quicker than your scheme. And that's why I think she's the class of the posts in America right now, because you can play through her, and then she still drops 30 on you.
After Florida State’s win over Wake Forest, Ta’Niya Latson guaranteed that the team would win against Syracuse.
Q. Ta'Niya, you were nodding pretty vigorously during Coach Wyckoff's discussion of that Syracuse game. Are you excited to get another match-up with Dyaisha Fair?
TA'NIYA LATSON: Yeah, for sure. We've got to get our get-back. We're going to win tomorrow.
And guess what? They delivered. After the Seminoles beat Syracuse, her teammates talked about the guarantee:
Q. For O and KK, did you know Ta'Niya said you guys were going to win tonight last night? How did you guys react?
O'MARIAH GORDON: Yes, I knew. She came to me after she talked to the media yesterday. She said -- I told them we're going to win tomorrow so we've got to stand on business, and I said, we're going to stand on business.
Yes, she was very excited, and that kind of got us pumped up for today.
MAKAYLA TIMPSON: I would say for me, I had an interview with some guy and he told me, like Ta’Niya said ya'll going to get the win tomorrow? I was like, yeah, we're going to get the win because we know how we lost to them the first time we played them, like off of our bad shots, and we had a lead, but now we kept our energy and we ride it through the whole game and we was in control of the game.
That allowed us to win the game tonight. So proud of my teammates.
Let’s finish strong with Jeff Walz, shall we?
Here he his after Louisville’s 58-55 win over Boston College in the second round:
Q. Moving on to face Notre Dame who you saw last Sunday, what takeaways are you taking from your previous matchup and also today's matchup and how is that going to translate into your plays tomorrow?
JEFF WALZ: Well, I haven't even really thought about tomorrow's game. I'm going to go to the bar first and have some Tito's and tonic and a few other things. And then hopefully it will make this game look a lot better when I watch it on film, blurry possibly. Then I'll start worrying about Notre Dame for tomorrow night.
And finally, here he is after his team’s loss to Notre Dame in the quarterfinals, in which Louisville had 20 turnovers and 22 made field goals. I must say: This is an NIL argument I had not heard before, and I didn’t think that was possible.
Q. Jeff, you mentioned there's been a pattern of only playing halves so far. How do you fix that? You had more turnovers than made field goals for a while. How do you fix that going into the next stage of the NCAA Tournament?
JEFF WALZ: It's impressive. It's not easy to turn the ball over more than you make a field goal.
We work on it in practice. If you don't give a s--- then it's hard. We think of new ways to turn the ball over. We have turned the ball over five straight games on an inbounds pass after a made basket. It's special. I've never had a group that's -- I mean, how do you practice that? Like okay, basket is made, when you take it out, look before you pass it and then throw it to your team. I don't know how else to practice it. We somehow still figure out a way to do it.
They have to care. Players have to care, as well. They have to own -- they have ownership as well as coaches do. Believe me, it's my job to get it fixed, but I can't play for them. I can't pass fake. I can't ball fake. You can't stare where you want to throw it, then throw it. Good teams are going to step in front and steal it.
Until we get to the point where it really matters -- see, this is where NIL could really improve our game because see, if I could fine like, say, $500 a turnover, I'll guarantee you we wouldn't turn that thing over one time. They'd care.
But they get all this good stuff, it's all great, but let's make it pay for play. The game will get cleaned up, I promise you. Our game will get better. If you pay for play, it'll get better, because that's really what it is. We just can't fine them. As a player, would you not care more, Jayda, if I said, every turnover it's $500 -- you're out 2 grand tonight.
We'd make money as coaches. Our athletic department would make money off our players. Our NIL would come back to the school. But they'd start changing.
They have to care. That's where we are right now, that we've got to care. The ball has to matter. Every possession matters. We're going to work for a week and a half on just grinding that in and instilling that into them.
The fight we showed in the second half, I think this is a ballclub that can still get to the second weekend of the NCAA Tournament, and then once you get there, anything can happen. Anything can happen. It's who's playing the best that night and then what crew you've got on the game. Anything can happen. I'm excited because they showed that fight.
Happy March, friends!
As a former band member in the ACC, I do feel bad for the cheerleaders and band that they have to go to Greensboro every single year while watching their peers travel up and down the coast and go to more exciting cities like Brooklyn, Atlanta, and DC. There just isn't much to do in Greensboro without a car, and your watching your friends get to spend a week in NYC instead? I get that they want to build an audience there but its hard to travel to (unless you are an NC school and were driving anyways) for fans since there isn't a large airport in the city.