Open Bidding To Replace Trenton As 2013 NCAA Site: Hello, Bridgeport?

We’ve told you that the NCAA decided this week to pull five postseason tournaments from the state of New Jersey after it passed legislation legalizing sports betting on professional and collegiate sports.

Why is this important to UConn fans?

Well, Trenton, N.J., was one of the regional sites for the 2013 Division I women’s basketball tournament. And tournament historians know that if UConn has a good regular season, and it appears they may have a great season, the likelihood of it being assigned there again was likely great because of geography and the chance Husky fans would “travel” for the games.

Well, according to the NCAA, this is what’s going to happen now:

“Following the decision to vacate holding championships in New Jersey, we are going to open the bidding process for any and all cities that have an interest in hosting our open regional site for the 2013 championship.   There are currently no front runners as we will be sending out bid specification information for all cities interested within the next few days.  Following committee and staff review of all bid documents, we anticipate having a decision by early November.”

UConn is already hosting first- and second-round games at Gampel this season. So they can not double-down [oops, sorry, a bad choice of terms] by bidding for the regional finals in Hartford.

That means Fairfield can bid again for Bridgeport’s Webster Bank Arena or Rhode Island can try to land the event for the Ryan Center – the sites of UConn’s run to the Final Four last season.

Even the Mohegan Sun Arena can look into it, although I don’t know what Division I team would host a Regional there.