Fans blast the NCAA for an “embarrassing” measurement mistake during the Elite Eight Round of the 2024 NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament.
Four Sweet 16 Women’s College Basketball games were played in Portland, Oregon, on March 29 and 30, paving the way for an exciting Elite Eight matchup between North Carolina State and Texas.
However, officials, players, and coaches didn’t realize that the three-point line on one side of the court was longer than the other. An eagle-eyed fan in the crowd finally noticed pre-game and pointed it out to the referees.
At first, officials used the always-accurate “step it off” method, simply counting the number of steps between the hoop and the top of the arc.
Lmao at trying to measure it with the extremely official “walking off the distance with your feet” system https://t.co/UXMoESC7Wn
— Rodger Sherman (@rodger) March 31, 2024
It revealed a slightly different measurement, so they busted out a tape measurer to confirm the error. According to the ESPN broadcast, the two head coaches agreed to continue the game anyway.
Fans couldn’t believe it while watching the officials realize that the error had apparently been present for multiple games.
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According to those in attendance, no one on the court realized the mistake until a fan said something, leading to a flurry of witty remarks online.
Another fan called it, “one of the single most embarrassing things I’ve ever seen from the NCAA,” given the magnitude of the Elite Eight game at hand.
One X user took a different approach. They said, “It’s the same wrong [distance] for every team that played there,” thus making it fair in their estimation.
The NC State Wolfpack shot 50 percent (9/18) from the three-point line, en route to a 10-point victory against Texas — a team that hit only one shot from beyond the arc on the day.