By Chuck Schoffner
The Associated Press

Ah, tournament time. Three weeks filled with excitement and tension-filled games, a time when even a lowly 16th-seeded team can dream of the possibilities.

And for some of the nation's top women's teams, the NCAA tournament will bring a new wrinkle this year.

Traveling.

No longer are the highest-seeded teams assured of playing at home in the first two rounds. The 16 arenas for those games were chosen last summer - "predetermined sites," the NCAA calls them - and many of the tournament's top contenders aren't part of that mix.

Two likely No. 1 seeded teams, Duke and LSU, both will travel for the opening round. So will Texas, North Carolina, Mississippi State, Vanderbilt, Rutgers and Villanova.

But top-ranked Connecticut will start the tournament at home, which the Huskies should find particularly comforting after their 70-game winning streak was broken by Villanova in the finals of the Big East tournament.

Tennessee also will be at home, along with Kansas State, Louisiana Tech, Stanford, Purdue and Texas Tech.

"Wherever they'll send us, we'll go," said LSU coach Sue Gunter, whose team won the Southeastern Conference tournament.

"That's the way we've approached it with the kids. We don't want them worrying about who we're playing or where we're going. Just get ready to go and be ready to play."

That's not to say Gunter likes this new arrangement. If Duke and LSU are top-seeded teams, it would be the first time since the NCAA started the women's tournament in 1982 that a No. 1 played its first game on the road.

"I think as coaches we're all singing the same song. I don't think any of us like predetermined sites, period," Gunter said. "We must start thinking about all of women's basketball. We've got to level the playing field and to level the playing field, you've got to go to neutral sites.

"This way doesn't seem quite right. I said that two years ago when they first started talking about it and I'll say it now."

Previously, the sites for first- and second-round games weren't known until Selection Sunday. The NCAA feels that picking those sites in advance has given organizers time to promote and sell tickets. They've had several months to do that instead of a few days.

It's also more accommodating for ESPN, which for the first time will show all 63 games in the tournament. The network has known well in advance where it will have to send its production and announcing teams.

"No doubt television has played a part in this," said Cheryl Marra, who chairs the Division I Women's Basketball Committee. "I'd be remiss if I did not acknowledge this. But I believe this was in the works before ESPN had done the contract that we could televise all 63 games."

Her point: it wasn't done just for television.

The subregionals are spread across the country, which is something that couldn't always be done when they went to the highest seeds.

On March 22 and 24, games will be played at Colorado, Georgia, New Mexico, Old Dominion, Oregon, Purdue, Stanford and Tennessee. The remaining games are March 23 and 25 at Cincinnati, Connecticut, Kansas State, Louisiana Tech, North Carolina State, Oklahoma, Penn State and Texas Tech.

Marra said the committee sees the current setup as a partial step toward all neutral sites, which the NCAA has been reluctant to endorse out of fear the games would not be well attended without a home team.

This year, Oregon and North Carolina State will be neutral courts because neither team will make the tournament. Duke coach Gail Goestenkors, whose teams traditionally have been seeded high enough to play at home in the first two rounds, said it's time to go all neutral.

"They should keep it the same as it was or go all the way," she said. "They believe this is a stepping stone to neutral, but it took so long to get through that we passed the stepping stone stage.

"Four years ago, it may have been a stepping stone. We're at the point now where it needs to be one or the other."

Because some higher seeded teams could be playing on the courts of lower-seeded opponents, this year's tournament might produce some early round upsets, which have been lacking. Since 1995, home teams have a 233-21 record in the first two rounds and only two have lost in the first round.

Marra said if Duke and LSU are No. 1 seeded teams, they could be sent to one of the neutral courts. It would be easy to put Duke at North Carolina State in Raleigh, 20 miles down the road. LSU could go to Oregon, though it would be a long trip.

That's something the committee has to balance: giving the No. 1 seeds a break by keeping them off someone's home court, yet trying to keep them as close to home as possible to make it easier for their fans.

"It might depend on how far they have to travel as to where we put them," Marra said.

There also could be teams playing at home at the regional level. Three teams that have subregionals also are hosting regionals: Tennessee (Mideast), New Mexico (Midwest) and Stanford (West).

Stanford has automatically qualified as the Pac-10 champion, Tennessee will get an at-large bid, and New Mexico is expected to make the tournament. Those three would have a chance to play their way into the Final Four in Atlanta without leaving home.

Tennessee, by the way, is 40-0 in NCAA tournament games at home.

The East Regional is at Dayton, Ohio, which will be neutral. Either Duke or Connecticut is expected to be there. The other probably would be sent to New Mexico, where the Lobos would have a huge crowd if they make it that far.

And Albuquerque's 5,000-foot altitude can't be ignored, Goestenkors said.

"We played out there in a tournament two years ago and I thought I was going to die," she said. "People who think there's nothing to the altitude have never played in New Mexico. I was just coaching and could literally feel the fatigue.

"If I we have to go out there, we'd go early because I know for a fact it takes several days to become more comfortable."

The Blue Devils will find out Sunday just how much they have to pack.

"We've talked about it," Goestenkors said. "After our last home game we talked about the fact we need to think of ourselves as road warriors."