The WIAA Girls State Basketball Tournament will be moving to Green Bay’s Resch Center for the next two years. The WIAA’s Board of
Control approved an executive recommendation Tuesday afternoon. But while the girls are moving for at least two years, the boys tournament is staying at the Kohl Center through 2020.
The move reverses an earlier executive staff recommendation that was supported by the board, to enter into a five-year deal to play the tournaments at the Resch Center.
WIAA Executive Director Dave Anderson said there are no conflicts at the Kohl Center for the WIAA’s preferred dates of the boys and girls tournaments from 2015-2020. But that doesn’t mean the girls will move back to Madison. Anderson anticipates a decision about the future of the girls tournament beyond 2014 in a couple of years.
The WIAA’s boys tournament will continue in Madison and will be held March 7-9. The girls tournament will be held outside the city for the first time since its inception in 1976. That event will take place at the Resch Center March 14-16.
The WIAA had originally planned to move the girls tournament back to its traditional slot ahead of the boys tournament, but the availability of that Kohl Center will prevent that switch until at least 2015.
The change in venue and schedule is necessary because of scheduling conflicts with the University of Wisconsin athletics schedule for 2013 and 2014. The traditional weekend of the Boys State Basketball Tournament in the Kohl Center has been reserved for the Western Collegiate Hockey Association playoffs in 2013. In addition, the third weekend in March is expected to be reserved in 2014 for the NCAA Women’s Frozen Four.
The Kohl Center has been home to the boys tournament since it opened in 1998 with a seating capacity of 17,230. The girls tournament has been held recently in two different venues, the Kohl Center and the Alliant Energy Center. The UW Fieldhouse also played host to the girls tournament in 2002.
The Resch Center, opened in 2002, has been the host venue for the WIAA State Girls Volleyball Tournament since 2002. With a seating capacity of 9,343 for basketball, the Resch Center is the home of the UW-Green Bay men’s basketball games.
AUDIO: WSAU’s Matt Lehman reports from the WIAA offices in Stevens Point :36