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A blog on UConn women's basketball.

Monday, June 10, 2013

Mohegan Sun Arena to host American Athletic Conference women's tourney

One of the worst-kept secrets in recent memory became official when the American Athletic Conference announced that Mohegan Sun Arena has been awarded the hosting rights for the conference's first women's basketball postseason tournament.

The tournament will be played from March 7-10 with all 10 teams taking part in the event and the top six seeds receiving byes into the quarterfinals.  The semifinals will be televised on ESPNU, while the championship will be on ESPN or ESPN2. Big East teams accustomed to a Tuesday night final will need to adjust to the new schedule as the champion will be crowned on a Monday.

The agreement is for one year with the conference having the option to return to Mohegan for the 2015 tournament.

“We look forward to this partnership,” said American Athletic Conference Commissioner Mike Aresco in a statement. “Mohegan Sun Arena offers our student-athletes, coaches and fans the best of many things –a world-class facility, a great destination and committed management. We feel that being at Mohegan Sun will enhance an already very successful women’s tournament experience.”

Former Big East teams UConn, Cincinnati, South Florida, Louisville and Rutgers will be joined by Central Florida, Houston, Memphis, SMU and Temple for the 2013-14 season. Louisville will leave for the ACC and Rutgers heads to the Big Ten after the season with East Carolina, Tulane and Tulsa joining the league in 2014.

With 10 teams in the conference for the 2013-14 and the conference wanting to play an 18-game conference schedule each team will play the other team once at home and once on the road. With 11 teams expected for the 2014-15 season, a different scheduling format will need to be utilized.

There is a chance that the schedule for the upcoming season will be revealed before Labor Day which is a change from the time frame of when the Big East schedule tended to be released.

No firm date has been set for the release of tickets but it could be around November as has been the case in the past with the Big East.

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