Sports

UAA women's basketball team bounced from new arena for season opener

The UAA women's basketball team will begin a new season at an old gym next month.

Scheduling conflicts at the new Alaska Airlines Center will send the Seawolves to the old Wells Fargo Sports Complex for their first two games of the season, plus another early season game in December.

Games against Holy Names University and Chaminade University on Nov. 13-14 conflict with the Class 4A and 3A state volleyball tournaments. And the second game of a Dec. 13-14 series against McKendree University is the same day as UAA's fall commencement ceremony.

"We've made commitments to (the Alaska School Activities Association) to host the high school state tournament and to our institution to provide a first-class setting for graduation ceremonies," UAA athletic director Keith Hackett said in a release from the school. "Unfortunately, we were left with a logistical problem."

Women's basketball coach Ryan McCarthy said he knew about the graduation conflict when he scheduled the Saturday-Sunday series with McKendree. He said he scheduled the games anyway because he wanted to play in Anchorage that weekend.

"It's right after finals, and we didn't want to travel," he said.

McCarthy said he knew there was the potential for conflict with the Nov. 14-15 games with Holy Names and Chaminade, but the games could not be moved to any other weekend.

ADVERTISEMENT

The games are "conference challenge" exempt games, which means they do not count against the NCAA-mandated limit of 26 regular-season games per season. To be exempt, conference challenge games must be against teams that play in the same region but in different conferences, and they must be played on the weekend of Nov. 14-15, McCarthy said.

Holy Names and Chaminade are members of the Pac West Conference, and each team will play one game at UAA and one at UAF. UAA and UAF are members of the Great Northwest Athletic Conference, which like the Pac West is part of the West Region.

"We partnered with Fairbanks to represent the GNAC," McCarthy said. "When we were presented with the conflict, I said as long as we can play them at home we need to do this, because it's rare where we can schedule (nonconference games) with Fairbanks."

UAA's new arena is bigger and more versatile than the old sports center, and consequently it is hosting more events than the old gym did. The 5,000-seat arena is attracting concerts, festivals, high school tournaments, graduations and other events that create the potential for conflicts with UAA sports.

The 196,000 square-foot facility is managed by Global Spectrum, a subsidiary of Comcast-Spectacor, a sports and entertainment firm based in Philadelphia. Global Spectrum handles the day-to-day management of the arena, including booking and scheduling.

UAA sports information director Nate Sagan said that UAA's athletic teams "are the highest priority" when it comes to booking the arena. He said when conflicts occur, they ultimately will be resolved by Hackett.

"There's going to be conflicts in the future, and we understand that," Sagan said. "We do the best we can when those come up."

Sagan said he doesn't think many UAA athletic events will be squeezed out of the new arena.

"This is going to be the rare occasion," he said. "It just so happened that, unfortunately, it's the first games of the year."

McCarthy, whose 19-9 team of a year ago won its final five games at the Wells Fargo Sports Complex, is putting a positive spin on the Seawolves' return to their old stomping grounds.

"Our last game we played there was a win," he said. "We want to keep that streak alive."

ADVERTISEMENT