The NCAA said Monday that one of the three-point lines on the court used for the regional women’s basketball games at the Moda Center in Portland, Ore., was about eight inches short at the top for regulation, a contractor error that is causing the courts are used. throughout March Madness.
The line has been corrected, the NCAA said. UConn and USC were scheduled to play the final Elite Eight game later on Monday to determine next week’s Final Four on the field.
The three-point lines are different on each side of the court in Portland for the Elite Eight. The NCAA measured the pregame and confirmed that one side has a different three-point length than the other. 🤦
NC State and Texas agreed to play through it. 🏀 #MarchCrazy pic.twitter.com/UnBo13kBUi
— Terrible announcement (@awfulannouncing) March 31, 2024
The NCAA uses Connor Sports to supply and install the courts. The NCAA said the mark used to draw the line at the top of the arc was marked too short. The contractor who made the mistake was not identified.
“On all NCAA courts, a small hole is punched in the floor at each end of the court to indicate the ‘center of the basket’ during the finishing process. A calibrated vinyl tape device is then placed into the hole, where the two-inch playing line to be painted is laid,” Lynn Holzman, NCAA vice president for women’s basketball, said in an email update sent to members.
An investigation by the Portland court found that the center hole had been cut approximately eight inches short of where it was supposed to be, at the apex of the three-point arc.
“Connor Sports and the NCAA discovered that the inaccurate line was the result of human error by the finisher contracted by Connor Sports,” Holzman said. “The investigation also revealed that the sides of the three-point line were accurately painted, as were all other field markings.”
The difference in distance was discovered Sunday before Texas and North Carolina State played their Elite Eight match. Four games had already been played in two days with the mismatched three-point lines.
Texas and NC State coaches agreed to play Sunday’s game as scheduled with one line shorter than the other, rather than postpone it. NC State defeated Texas 76-66 to advance to the Final Four.
The NCAA three-point line is 22ft 1.75 inches at the top of the arc for both women and men.
“We apologize for this error and the time it went unnoticed,” Holzman said. “Simply put, this court did not meet our expectations, and the NCAA should have discovered the error sooner. We will work with all NCAA suppliers and vendors to establish additional quality control measures to ensure this does not happen at future tournaments.
Teams alternate the basket they shoot from at halftime, so for each game each team played a half shooting from the short three-point arc.
According to NCAA statistics, teams shooting from the three-point line in Portland, which was nine inches short at the top over five games, were 23 for 89 (25.8%). Teams that shot from the right line were 29 for 87 (33.3%).
“I think we shot the ball better the other end both games because that’s the normal line,” NC State coach Wes Moore said. “But I’m not going to blame that. I mean, these kids, like I said, sometimes fall so far behind these days, who knows where the line is?
The Wolfpack was 11 for 19 shooting threes from the correctly measured line in two games and 5 for 16 from the wrong line.
“You know, it’s an unusual situation,” Moore said. “But like I said, I don’t know if it was an advantage or a disadvantage either way. We both played a half at each end.”
Connor Sports is a hardwood sports flooring company that supplies more than a dozen NBA and WNBA team floors for their practice venues and game arenas, according to the company’s website.
“We apologize for the error found and have technicians on site at the Moda Center in Portland who have been instructed to make the necessary corrections immediately following (Sunday’s) match,” the company said in a statement on Sunday.
In arenas that host multiple types of basketball events, multiple courts are often used. For example, at Madison Square Garden in New York, there is a field that is used for Knicks games, and when the Big East Tournament is played there, the conference brings a field. That court features logos, signage and lines drawn to college basketball dimensions.
The main difference between an NBA court and a college court is the distance between the three-point line and the basket. The NBA line is one foot further away than the NCAA line.