Maryland WBB frustrated over disparity of tournament amenities originally appeared on NBC Sports Washington
The annual men’s and women’s NCAA basketball tournaments begin this week, pitting the 64 best teams on each side of college hoops against each other to determine a national champion. The women’s tournament will be held in San Antonio, Texas, while the men are playing in Indianapolis.
When the women’s teams arrived at their facility, however, they started to notice how their “weight room” wasn’t exactly up to the same standard as it was for the men’s teams.
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After heavy criticism ensued, the NCAA released a statement citing a lack of space as reasoning for the limited equipment.
“We acknowledge that some of the amenities teams would typically have access to have not been in place as available inside the controlled environment,” the statement read. “In part, this is due to the limited space and the original plan was to expand the workout area once additional space was available later in the tournament. However, we want to be responsive to the needs of our participating teams, and we are actively working to enhance existing resources at practice courts, including additional weight training equipment.”
Not everyone bought that explanation.
In an effort to show how his players need the weight room equipment just as much as the men’s teams do, Maryland assistant director of basketball performance Keith Pough posted a series of videos on Twitter showing them lifting.
Some of Maryland’s players also took to Twitter to comment on the differences between the “swag bags” given to participants of each respective tournament.
The women’s tournament is scheduled to begin Sunday before No. 2-seeded Maryland takes on No. 15 Mount St. Mary’s on Monday afternoon.
