Spokane, University of Idaho ‘roll out the red carpet’ ahead of NCAA March Madness games

It’s a bold move to question the basketball bona fides of a city hosting an NCAA March Madness regional – especially when that city is Spokane.

But that’s exactly what University of Connecticut women’s basketball coach Geno Auriemma did at a news conference just before the tournament got underway. The 11-time national championship winner questioned Hooptown USA as a locale, claiming “there aren’t even eight hotels within 500 miles of Spokane, we’re going to have to stay in Idaho.”

The hyperbole came as Auriemma lamented the amount of traveling his team would need to do as they advanced further in the tournament, and how the women’s side of the annual competition features only two regionals compared to the men’s four.

“They have one in Alabama and one in Spokane, Washington, which means 90% of the country can’t go to any of those games,” Auriemma said of the regionals. “… They picked these sites, and I have no idea why they pick them, other than when they were decided, there wasn’t this craziness about women’s sports that there is today.”

UConn is one team of a field of eight that will be competing in Rounds 3 and 4 of the NCAA Tournament at the Spokane Arena starting Friday. It’ll be Spokane’s fifth year hosting the tournament, previously hosting the men’s side in 2003, 2007, 2010, 2014, 2016 and 2024, and the women’s side in 2008, 2011, 2015 and 2024. The arena will be home to the first and second rounds of the men’s tournament again in 2027.

Local governments, businesses and advocacy groups have been hard at work in preparation for the basketball fanatics expected to descend on downtown Spokane for what will be the University of Idaho’s third stint as a host school for NCAA tournament games. University spokesman Jerek Wolcott said he expects Auriemma to be “pleasantly surprised” by the accommodations, amenities, facilities and the rest of the components that make up the well-oiled machine of putting on tournament games in Spokane.

“I think that the teams, when they leave this tournament, they are going to have a different respect for Spokane than they did before they got here,” Wolcott said. “And that’s part of why we host, that’s we want to show people a great time, roll out the red carpet and make sure that they have the best experience.”

Downtown gets face-lift

The work started weeks ago for the Downtown Spokane Partnership and city crews that are cleaning up trash and covering graffiti, said Elisabeth Hooker, vice president of marketing and programming for the downtown business advocacy group.

“The downtown clean team works 365 a year, so we are always cleaning up downtown, making sure that it looks great, so that visitors, local and from afar, enjoy downtown,” Hooker said.

“But we kind of view this as, we’ve got extra special guests coming over for dinner, so you do that extra deep clean.”

The Washington Department of Transportation is chipping in as well. Their local graffiti abatement team was asked to prioritize the I-90 corridor from around the U.S. Highway 2 interchange to Argonne Road, a request the department was happy to accommodate, said Ryan Overton, the Eastern Washington spokesman for the department.

Overton said the crew works year -round, and the public can report graffiti on or near state roadways on the transportation department website.

“We get a report every Friday and we try to schedule these as soon as possible,” Overton said.

Accommodations avoid last year’s controversy

Auriemma’s team won’t be staying in Idaho as he posited weeks ago; Wolcott said each team has been given accommodations in downtown Spokane.

The Huskies coach was likely making reference to the experience of the University of Utah women’s basketball team last year that was put up in the Coeur d’Alene Resort, a four-star hotel that draws visitors from around the world.

The Utah women’s team was the subject of racist remarks and harassment on a walk to dinner while staying in the resort, which plunged the Spokane tournament games, and the accommodations for the teams, into the limelight.

Wolcott called it an “unfortunate incident” that could have happened anywhere. While there have been historic issues with racism and hate festering in North Idaho, he said the Utah team’s experience was not representative of the region as a whole. Part of the reason for the need to house teams in Idaho last year was due to having both the men’s and women’s side of the tournament in Spokane on the same weekend, he added.

“There’s issues all over the country and I think it’s important to remember that,” Wolcott said. “And I think it’s important to make sure that we do our best to put our best foot forward and give everything we can.”

Amenities and events for fans near and far

Wolcott, Hooker and Spokane Sports spokeswoman Keytra Lewis said visiting and local sports fans have plenty of things to look forward to, as part of the tournament games as well as extracurriculars.

March Madness isn’t the only sporting event in Spokane this spring: The Lilac City hosted state championships for middle and high school women’s basketball teams to kick off March, followed by the Pacific Northwest Qualifier for middle and high school volleyball players, which will overlap with the collegiate games over the weekend. The string of prominent sporting events will stretch into April with the USA Women’s Wrestling national championship and world team trials at the Podium from April 4 -6.

In light of all the competitions featuring women athletes, Spokane Sports has launched the Spokane Champions Women in Sports campaign, an effort to recognize and celebrate women in the industry.

The sports advocacy group has a litany of events planned, which got underway Tuesday as the group hosted a “Beyond the Baseline” panel discussion featuring several prominent industry leaders and athletes, including Olympian Cierra Burdic, who won a bronze medal as part of Team USA in the 2024 Paris games.

“Seeing these back -to -back -to -back events, I just knew there was something brewing there, especially because the month of March is National Women’s History Month,” Lewis said. “Add in the fact that we have so many female leaders within even just our organization, but also our partners and within the community.”

Spokane Sports has more planned over the weekend, including a youth basketball clinic for grades 3 through 8 Thursday featuring Burdick, former Grand View University star and WNBA coach Kiana Peterson and 3-on-3 pro Natalie Kucowski, a 2021 Seattle Storm draft pick.

Fans can also look forward to a Saturday block party on the northern bank of Riverfront Park, just across the street from the Spokane Arena. Food vendors, a beer garden, a DJ and activities for the youth will fill the space from noon to 5 p.m., and Chris Bovey, of Vintage Print, will be live-printing T-shirts, which will be free to the first 300 visitors, Lewis said.

“Obviously, the games are happening, but then also PNQ, so we’re hoping to pull from both,” Lewis said. “We’re going to be right smack dab in the middle at Riverfront Park.”

The University of Southern California and the University of California Los Angeles are the closest to Spokane of the eight teams competing for a spot in the Final Four over the weekend. To give visitors a sense of a “home base” while in town, Spokane Sports and the Downtown Spokane Partnership have partnered with several local restaurants and bars to serve as fan sites in between and after the games.

Lewis said the NCAA would not condone assigning a specific venue to each team’s fan base, but the list should serve as a cheat sheet of local eateries and drinkeries. Flatstick Pub, Brick West Brewing and Lord Stanley’s are just a few of the spots to be featured. A complete list can be found on the Downtown Spokane Partnership website.

“There’s just going to be so much excitement and energy, and I’m just really excited to show people who’ve either never been to Spokane or coming to Spokane after it’s been a while, … just how great our city really is,” Hooker said. “How we do all show up when sporting events come to town, and that we rally behind them and support them.”

Hooker said visitors can also look forward to free transit if they don’t feel like walking throughout the weekend. Most local hotels will carry day passes courtesy of the Spokane Transit Authority that will be distributed to out-of-towners.

Spokane has been repeatedly selected as a host site because of how smoothly past rounds have gone, and the trust in local groups to ensure that trend continues, Wolcott said. NCAA member schools of Idaho’s size seldom get the opportunity to host, which comes with financial perks for the school and the region. An even smaller number get the opportunity to host four times in such a tight time frame, he added.

“We’re among the elite when it comes to the respect that the NCAA has for us running an event, and so that’s why we have another one coming up in 2027,” Wolcott said. “It’s really exciting to see that they still have that much respect for us, that they continue to reward us with events here in the Inland Northwest.”