KANSAS CITY, Mo. – The National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) announced on Tuesday the final group of hosts for the 2021 NAIA Men’s and Women’s Basketball National Championship Opening Rounds.
Lewis-Clark State College in Lewiston, Idaho, will host both men’s and women’s events at the Lewis-Clark State Activity Center. The fourth-ranked men and No. 24-ranked women each won the revised Cascade Collegiate Conference Tournament Championships, presented by U.S. Bank, to earn the conference’s automatic qualifiers.
In January, the National Administrative Council (NAC) approved a
basketball measure that reduced the overall field size.
The basketball move will directly affect NAIA National Championship Opening Rounds, which will change from 16, four-team tournaments per gender to eight, six-team (three-team pod) tournaments per gender.
Each opening round site will feature two, three-team “pod” tournaments (per gender) in which the No. 1 seed will receive a bye. The Nos. 2 & 3 teams will play each other on day one, and will face the No. 1 seed in that pod for the championship. The winner of that final game will go to the NAIA National Championship Final Site in either Sioux City, Iowa (women) or Kansas City, Mo. (men).
Preference was given to hosts who could accommodate both genders due to the complexity of logistics of pre-championship COVID-19 testing, which will be a part of all 2021 NAIA championships. In 2022 the men’s and women’s championship will return to a 64-team format with 16 regional opening round sites.
Below is the full list of all sites:
| Men's Sites |
|
| Location |
Host |
| Alexandria, La. |
LSU Alexandria (La.) |
| Crestview Hills, Ky. |
Thomas More (Ky.) |
| Lewiston, Idaho |
Lewis-Clark State (Idaho) |
| Marion, Ind. |
Indiana Wesleyan |
| Montgomery, Ala. |
Faulkner (Ala.) |
| Omaha, Neb. |
Omaha Sports Commission |
| Park City, Kan. |
Kansas Collegiate Athletic Conference |
| Wichita, Kan. |
Kansas Collegiate Athletic Conference |
|
|
| Women's Sites |
|
| Location |
Host |
| Alexandria, La. |
LSU Alexandria (La.) |
| Crestview Hills, Ky. |
Thomas More (Ky.) |
| Indianapolis, Ind. |
Marian (Ind.) |
| Lakeland, Fla. |
Southeastern (Fla.) |
| Lewiston, Idaho |
Lewis-Clark State (Idaho) |
| Omaha, Neb. |
Omaha Sports Commission |
| Park City, Kan. |
Kansas Collegiate Athletic Conference |
| Wichita, Kan. |
Kansas Collegiate Athletic Conference |