The NCAA have acknowledged their mistake after the three-point lines at each end of the court for the Women’s NCAA Tournament at Moda Center were marked differently to each other.
The NCAA and a Connor Sports technician “found the center-hole was punched in the wrong position, which resulted in the incorrect arc measurement for the 3-point line.”
“Connor Sports and the NCAA found the inaccurate line was the result of human error by the finisher contracted by Connor Sports,” Lynn Holzman, NCAA vice president for women’s basketball, said. “The review also found the sides of the three-point line were accurately painted, as were all other court markings.”
While the NCAA didn’t provide exact measurement errors, it appeared that one three-point line near the top of the key was around six inches closer to the basket than at the opposite end of the floor.
The difference in the lines went unnoticed through four games over two days, until number one seed Texas and number three seed North Carolina State were told about the issue before their Elite Eight matchup on Sunday.
NC State coach Wes Moore and Texas coach Vic Schaefer did know about the issue as they were told during the pregame shootaround, but opted to still go ahead with the game, The Athletic reports.
NC State won 76-66 to advance to the Final Four.
“It’s a shame, but it is what it is. … At the end of the day, I don’t know that it mattered”, Schaefer said.
“If I would have (objected), I’d have been the only one in the room that wanted to do it.”
The NCAA did apologise for the error.
“We apologize for this error and the length of time for which it went unnoticed,” Holzman said. “Simply put, this court did not meet our expectations, and the NCAA should have caught the error sooner. We will work with all of the NCAA’s suppliers and vendors to establish additional quality control measures to ensure this does not happen in future tournaments.”