Ever since the Pacific-10 Conference began sponsoring women’s college basketball in 1986, the conference schedule has included an 18-game slate.
In this schedule, each team plays the other nine Pac-10 schools twice — once at home and once on the road.
Now that the inaugural conference tournament is here, many of the conference’s coaches would like to see that schedule abbreviated
— possibly to as few as 14 games.
“I’m very much in favor of a shorter conference schedule,” Arizona State head coach Charli Turner Thorne said. “Much like the Big 12 (Conference) and (Southeastern Conference) where we would have more flexibility in our scheduling.”
Only one Pac-10 squad has been continually ranked this season. Stanford, which has been in the top 10 since the season started, has become a rock at No. 2 in the nation.
Some believe that the parity that has made the Pac-10 a competitive league has also hampered its ability to gain national recognition. Often teams such as Arizona State are on the cusp of a national ranking, only to lose that possibility because of a conference loss.
If a 14- or 16-game league season were to be adopted, this would open up time for additional nonconference games, which some believe would enhance the Pac-10’s image.
The 18-game schedule “doesn’t give you a lot to mess with,” USC head coach Chris Gobrecht said.
However, Gobrecht did add that she would rather play a conference opponent if she had to choose.
Gobrecht said she was a proponent of keeping with the 18-game schedule before the season, but because of the conference’s parity and the shortened amount of time to play the games, she may change her mind.
“Having been through the experience this year, I could see going to 16,” she said. “It was hard to play Pac-10 teams when we played them.”
Turner Thorne agrees with this sentiment.
“When we are ranked and lose in conference, we fall out of the rankings every time,” she said. “The biggest way we can help ourselves is to get away from the double round-robin and have more preseason nonconference games. It would help our national image.
“We’d use them the right way.”
There is, however, some dissent among the ranks on the issue of a shortened season.
UCLA head coach Kathy Olivier, who guided the Bruins to a 4-14 record and No. 8 seed in the tournament, said she has wavered on the issue. Whereas at the beginning of the season she would have preferred the shortened season, she now questions that possibility.
“At the beginning, when we were doing all this voting and trying to figure out the best way to have the tournament, I was thinking more of a smaller conference (season) and to not play everyone twice,” she said. “When I thought of that, how do you do that? I think that would be difficult. The reality of it is, to be a champion, you need to play everyone twice.
“I’m still trying to find out what the best solution is.”