MA Voepel covers the WNBA, women’s college basketball, and other college sports for espnW. Voepel began covering women’s basketball in 1984, and has been with ESPN since 1996.<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n
Indiana Hoosiers women’s basketball coach Teri Moren said Saturday that an opportunity was missed to showcase her No. 6-ranked, undefeated squad and other teams at the Las Vegas Invitational tournament this weekend because of a subpar setup for the event.<\/p>\n
A site coordinator for the event told ESPN that he apologized to players, coaches, fans and referees about the tournament conditions, which have been discussed on social media. The tournament was played on a court in a large ballroom area at The Mirage hotel that had no stands for spectators. Chairs were set up around the court.<\/p>\n
Moren confirmed that the site coordinator, Ryan Polk, did apologize.<\/p>\n
“I think there are other people who probably need to apologize as well for wanting us to come and play in this event and making promises, if you will,” Moren said. “This is not what was described to us a far as what the venue was going to look like, what the setup was going to look like.<\/p>\n
“What was disappointing was the aesthetics; it’s not a fan-friendly environment. As women’s basketball coaches, we’re trying to move our game forward. It felt like because [this] got so many ticks on social, that we had taken a couple steps backwards. We have an obligation to grow our game, and we completely missed on this opportunity because you have a lot of really good teams that are here. I see all these other tournaments going on and footage of that, but this was a major miss.”<\/p>\n
Indiana shared correspondence the school had in March with the tournament director, Bryce McKey, who told the Hoosiers that the event would be set up with a court similar to what the Athletes Unlimited professional women’s league in Las Vegas had earlier this year. But it did not resemble that.<\/p>\n