Pac-12 women’s tournament begins with new quarter system

Pac-12 women’s tournament begins with new quarter system

For the first time, March Madness — at least the women’s variety — will incorporate 10-minute quarters as opposed to 20-minute halves.

The NCAA installed the format for the women’s game at the start of the season, and it’ll make its Pac-12 tournament debut Thursday in Seattle, in what very well could be a precursor for men’s games.

Men’s collegiate basketball remains the last holdout — high schools, the NBA, and international ball all use a quarter system — and many coaches believe the switch from playing two halves to four quarters will come in the near future.

For the women, the change hasn’t come without a learning curve.

[...] though most Pac-12 coaches like the quarter system, one notable dissenter is Stanford head coach Tara VanDerveer.

Teams now shoot two free throws for each common foul committed by the other team, starting with its fifth foul of the quarter.

In the past, teams reached a 1-and-1 bonus on the seventh team foul of each half and reached the double bonus of two shots on the 10th team foul.

“The reset of the fouls after the quarter is a tremendous improvement,” Utah’s Lynne Roberts said.

With the quarters, You get more last-second situations and clock-management situations.

Another proponent is Washington’s Mike Neighbors, although he said, “I wish we had one more timeout or that they didn’t force us to use that timeout in the first half.”

“The loss of a timeout is a little bit tricky,” Washington State’s June Daugherty said.

Though fans generally bemoan stoppages in play, most coaches favor more timeouts.

“You get to do more game management after the first quarter,” USC’s Cynthia Cooper said.

The quarters “compartmentalize” the game, according to Scott Rueck, head coach of league co-champion Oregon State, the top seed in the conference tournament.

For me as a coach and a teacher, it’s helpful.

The men did follow the women’s lead and reduced their shot clock from 35 to 30 seconds this season.

Tom FitzGerald is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer.

Pac-12 women’s tournament

The final will be on ESPN.

All earlier games involving Cal and Stanford will be on P12BA, all the other games on Pac-12 Network, a paid tier on Comcast.

The Bears hope to salvage a disappointing season with a Pac-12 tournament run.

The Bears face a Utah squad Thursday to which they lost two games by a combined 11 points this season.

The winner will play No. 2-seed Arizona State in the quarterfinals Friday.