UGA women relish chance to play in Gwinnett

It seems incongruous: a No. 6 seed having to travel 2,000 miles to play a No. 11 seed in its home state.

But that will be the situation at noon today when Arizona State plays Georgia in an NCAA women’s tournament first-round game at Gwinnett Arena.

Despite their low seed, the Lady Bulldogs got the perk of playing close to home because several years ago, Georgia bid for the right to be the host school for first- and second-round games in Duluth. And that meant the Lady Dogs — if they made the 64-team field — automatically would be placed in the four-team Gwinnett bracket.

“We’ve all been very excited about the opportunity to play close to Athens and close to some of our homes,” Georgia point guard Ashley Houts said Friday.

The past few years, the women’s tournament moved toward neutral sites for the first and second rounds by playing the games at just eight pre-determined sites of eight teams each. This year, a return to 16 pre-determined sites of four teams each increased the likelihood of a team — even a lower-seeded team — having home-court or home-state advantage.

“We tried to go to neutral sites, and obviously the game of college women’s basketball wasn’t ready,” Arizona State coach Charli Turner Thorne said Friday.

She expressed no objection to playing the Lady Bulldogs 45 miles from their campus.

“It is where we’re at, and I understand and appreciate that,” she said. “You would not be in the NCAA tournament if you did not know how to win on the road.”

Besides, a bigger issue for the Sun Devils (23-8, 15-3 Pac-10) is the absence of point guard and leading scorer Dymond Simon, sidelined with a knee injury sustained in the regular-season finale.

Georgia-Arizona State will be followed by a game between No. 3 seed Florida State and No. 14 North Carolina A&T. The winners meet Monday night.

Georgia (18-13, 7-7 SEC) is in the NCAA tournament for the 15th consecutive year and 26th time in 28 years. This year’s bid came from a rare position on the tournament bubble as the Lady Dogs rebuilt without four-year standout Tasha Humphrey.

“It certainly has been in many ways a transitional year,” coach Andy Landers said.

But the team arrives at tournament time feeling good about itself and its place.

“We are competitive,” Landers said. “We have a very good basketball team.”