STARKVILLE — Suzy Merchant doesn’t know how many fans will be in Starkville this weekend to support her Michigan State women’s basketball team.

When you’re more than 13 hours from home, it isn’t likely you’re going to get a throng of Spartans fans wearing green to attend your game, even if it is the first round of the NCAA tournament.

In a perfect world, Merchant wouldn’t have to worry about fan support. Ideally, Merchant and her players would have slept in their own beds Thursday night and been able to follow a more normal pre-game routine for their game against Belmont at 11 a.m. today at Humphrey Coliseum.

Instead, Merchant and No. 4 seed Michigan State (24-8) had to travel more than 13 hours to Mississippi to play on the home court of Mississippi State. The Spartans were forced to travel because the Breslin Center, their home court, is being used for the state girls basketball tournament. As a result, Michigan State likely will be without the advantage of playing for an average home crowd of 6,561. That might not be a big concern against Belmont, but it could be a larger issue Sunday if Michigan State wins and Mississippi State (26-7) beats Chattanooga (24-7) and both teams face each other at a time to be determined in the second round.

On Thursday, Merchant was asked if there is anything the NCAA can do to make sure top-16 seeds play at home, or at least play closer to home, in future NCAA tournaments.

“I think the 30-mile thing is a little difficult when you’re looking at a venue like this,” Merchant said. “It has to be bigger than 30 miles because some places it is not possible. The only thing you have in (the area) is your university. They could expand that.

“Maybe I am the only women’s college coach in the country, but I will go on record in saying that I don’t think first and second rounds, or any rounds, should be on anybody’s campuses. The men don’t do that. I don’t think we should do that. … You don’t work that hard all season to go play on someone’s home floor.”

All schools have to submit a bid to play host to a NCAA tournament and then be approved. If there is a conflict with a home venue, a school can have another facility within that 30-mile radius serve as its second “home court.” Even though Merchant said she has been on the other side of the issue and pulled an “upset” of a higher seeded team, she feels a change should be made.

“If we really want to look at our sport and open it up to not just a few teams constantly being there, we really have to make a decision as a whole, I think, why can’t we do four super sites that are neutral sites and you take 16 teams here and here and you kind of build that all year,” Merchant said. “I would love to host, but, in the end, I don’t think that is good for our game if every time people turn on women’s basketball and it is the same three or four teams in the Final Four, it is not interesting after a while. We really need to take a look at that.”

Merchant said a “fair and equitable” scenario for all 64 teams wouldn’t put any team on another’s home court. She said the Big Ten, the Atlantic Coast, the Southeastern conference tournaments are played on neutral sites for a reason, and she feels the postseason should follow the same guideline.

Unfortunately for Michigan State, at least this year, the NCAA appears to have gone back to playing games on the home floors of teams. A

In 2013, the NCAA voted to move its women’s basketball regionals back to neutral sites when it announced Oklahoma City, Sacramento, Greensboro, and Albany would host the 2015 regionals. According to a report on ESPN.com, the committee received criticism from coaches about the move to have regionals on campus for this season’s tournament.

“The committee heard the concerns from the coaching community in protecting neutrality at the regional rounds and acted accordingly,” said Anucha Browne, NCAA vice president, women’s basketball championships. “In looking for ways to improve the student-athlete experience, the committee felt a move to neutral regional sites was in the best interest of the championship.”

In December 2015, the Division I Women’s Basketball Oversight Committee formed a Strategic Format Review Subcommittee to review all rounds of the tournament and provide any recommendations in June 2016.

“After reviewing the day shift proposal with future host sites, the committee decided that it was in the best interest for all concerned that we remain with the dates that were previously contracted for the Women’s Final Four through 2019 and regional rounds through 2017,” said Jean Lenti Ponsetto, chair of the Division I Women’s Basketball Oversight Committee and director of athletics at DePaul University. “To expedite future discussion in these areas, we have formed a Strategic Format Review Subcommittee so more information can be obtained in helping to make these decisions going forward.”

The committee, which is made up of conference and campus athletics administrators, two current women’s basketball student-athletes, and a head coach, had previously decided to keep the format that establishes the top-16 seeds as hosts for the first and second rounds and to keep the regional sites at predetermined neutral venues.

In past years, the NCAA has worked to hold the first two rounds and regionals at “neutral” sites. Last season, the NCAA changed course and gave the top-16 seeds a chance to play at home. That home-court advantage grew even bigger for some teams because they were allowed to play host to Sweet 16 and Elite Eight games.

Merchant isn’t sure if concerns about attendance or financial issues fueled the change, but she said something needs to be done.

“I think they felt like the atmosphere (wasn’t enough), but in the first rounds of the men’s tournament in Dayton and there are not a lot of people in the stands there,” Merchant said. “Our men have played in different spots, like if they are out west, and it is not packed to the brim. Maybe that is what they look at. Maybe it is a financial thing. I guess I really don’t know all of the details as to why, but I am just speaking from a parity and fairness and equitable fairness (standpoint).

“It is something that needs to be looked at. It shouldn’t be based just all on money. If we want the experience to be fair and equitable, I think neutral sites would be something. I think if you could put them in pods, like I talked about, I think you could really get a good fan base. I guess I disagree if we really did it right and really dove into it and really marketed it and those cities really wanted it.”

Chattanooga women’s basketball coach Jim Foster agrees. Foster, a member of the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame, has worked as a head coach at Saint Joseph’s, Vanderbilt, and Ohio State and is familiar with all of the debate that has surrounded where to play NCAA women’s basketball tournament games. He was asked Thursday if the women’s tournament is at a point where it can go back to neutral sites and get decent crowds or if it is better served being played on home courts

“To part B, no,” Foster said. “It is not better served. I think somewhere in the future we’ll come up with something that works. There are significant models, interesting models, out there, maybe grabbing the baseball model and having four areas of the country that get to host. Obviously Connecticut would be one because they’re so successful. California probably would be one and where in the Midwest and in the Mideast would you come up with these areas. Maybe that is where you can send more teams. Maybe you sit down and really, really haggle it and get some people to go to different communities and sell it.

“Unemployed coaches in men’s basketball work for ESPN. I’d like to come up with an opportunity for unemployed women’s basketball coaches to maybe go out and sell their game.”

Foster said there is enough interest throughout the country to sustain a model like that if you go to the right places. He said he doesn’t know who came up with the idea of Omaha, Nebraska, being the home of Division I baseball, but that idea “seems to have thrived.” He said it might be time to take steps and follow similar ideas that “maybe seemed far fetched or don’t make a lot of sense.”

“I think more people are invested in it and more schools are investing in it,” Foster said. “It takes time. I don’t think men’s basketball in the era of (former UCLA men’s coach) John Wooden, if we say this is the era of (Connecticut women’s basketball coach) Geno Auriemma, was thriving. I think (former Big East Conference Commissioner) Dave Gavitt and ESPN happening at the same time took the men’s game to another place. I don’t know who are Gavitt is, and I don’t know what entity out there that we can put out there to compete with ESPN is available, but who knows? We may have a woman president. Maybe that will change people’s mind-sets about women.”

Foster also agreed with Merchant that the NCAA needs to examine whether a 30-mile radius should be extended to give deserving teams a better chance to play as close to their campus as possible.

“I think based on where some universities are situated that without a doubt (the 30-mile radius should be extended to give a school a second option for a “home court”),” Foster said. “When I coaches at Saint Joseph’s, we had six Division I schools within a half-hour drive of each other if you knew the back way. When I go to some of these universities, I wonder how any students get there, so coming up with a common-sense geographical idea that would fit all … I don’t think any team that has earned the right to play in front of its fans (as a top-16 seed) should go somewhere. I think that should not be.”

Belmont coach Cameron Newbauer said there is talk every year about what has changed and what teams have to do to get into the NCAA tournament. But Newbauer said none of the talk changes the fact that a team is going to have to beat somebody somewhere. He said thinking too much about the logistics and the seedings can cause you to miss the opportunity the student-athletes compete in the “greatest tournament in the country in March.”

“There are a lot of smart people in that room,” Newbauer said, referring to the 10 people on the NCAA tournament selection committee. “They are in that room for a reason, so I am not going to think for a second that I would know how to solve it because I am sure there are other issues out there that we don’t know about that those people take care of, so I put the full trust in them in what they do and how they come up with it.

“I think they do a terrific job. For them to give us a No. 13 seed and to play a No. 4 seed on a neutral site, I think is a great job.

“When I was at Louisville, we hosted the first and second rounds and we had 9,000 fans,” Newbauer said. “I also have been on the side where we went to a neutral site and there was hardly anybody there for any team. To build this game, we want fans to experience this. We want them to be able to bring the young ladies and the young kids to see this. I think sometimes yeah, maybe it is a disadvantage that you have to play on someone’s home court, but for us to grow the game and for us to have these atmospheres that are great atmospheres — like Mississippi State fans are going to come out and support this team and there are going to be a lot of people here — that is part of it.

“Every fan base is different. You look at Big Blue Nation with the men. They are going to travel no matter where they go. Part of it is your fan bases. We have to do a job as head coaches to grow our personal brand. That is on us, and that is on the product that we put on the court. That is the people we have on the court that we put out in the community. I don’t see it as a negative. I see it as an awesome challenge to be able to go somewhere and to beat a really good team on their home floor because that is what this is all about.”

MSU coach Vic Schaefer didn’t know how the NCAA could find a solution that would please all of its member institutions. He said he worked several years ago with his administration to make sure it supports him and that it would work with him to make sure Humphrey Coliseum was available when the program was good enough to have a chance to play host to the NCAA tournament. He said he is excited that the Bulldogs will get that chance this weekend.

Unfortunately, Merchant might get an opportunity to see just how strong a following Schaefer and his players have built. For a team that went 24-8, finished third in the Big Ten Conference, and was runner-up to Maryland in the Big Ten tournament, Merchant would be prefer to be a little closer to home this weekend rather than being nearly 850 miles away from East Lansing.

“You work real hard all season and have to have to go play on someone’s home court,” Merchant said. “Some teams are not going to leave their state until they potentially go to the Final Four. That would be nice. We have to look at this and say what is good for the game to grow the game if that is what we really want to do.”

Follow Dispatch sports editor Adam Minichino on Twitter @ctsportseditor

Adam Minichino is the former Sports Editor for The Commercial Dispatch.