CLEVELAND -- You couldn't ask for a better NCAA women's basketball regional than the one in Cleveland. You could ask for a fairer one.

It's not fair to No. 1 seed North Carolina, which plays No. 4 Purdue this afternoon. And it's not fair to No. 2 seed Tennessee or No. 3 seed Rutgers, which play each other in the first game of the regional doubleheader.

"I don't know what anybody was looking at when they decided to do this," Rutgers coach C. Vivian Stringer said Saturday. "I thought they were trying to get it where the four best teams could arrive in Boston."

Only one of these teams can make it to Boston for the Final Four, but three of the coaches will make themselves heard there.

UT coach Pat Summitt, North Carolina coach Sylvia Hatchell and Stringer plan to voice their concerns about the tournament selection and seeding process at the Women's Basketball Coaching Association convention, which coincides with the Final Four next weekend.

"That will be the No. 1 topic," Hatchell said. "Our game has grown, and this is a growing pain that we're going through.

"There's no doubt that there are some changes that need to be made. I think even the people on the (tournament selection) committee would agree with that."

No one can argue that North Carolina was the No. 1 team in women's basketball this season after going 29-1 and winning both the Atlantic Coast Conference regular-season and tournament championships. Yet look how the selection committee rewarded the Tar Heels.

They had to play Vanderbilt on its home court in the second round, and they were placed in the same regional with UT and Rutgers, each of which was a candidate for a No. 1 seed before its conference tournament.

"It almost becomes laughable when you look at the teams they beat and where they ended up," Stringer said.

You could argue that two of North Carolina's ACC rivals have easier paths to the Final Four. Duke is a No. 1 seed in the Bridgeport, Conn., regional, where UConn is the No. 2 seed.

North Carolina beat UConn by 23 points in Hartford during the regular season. Maryland is a No. 2 seed in the Albuquerque regional, where No. 1 seed Ohio State was eliminated in the second round.

Summitt said she wasn't surprised when Ohio State, a shaky No. 1 seed, was upset by Boston College.

Ohio State coach Jim Foster responded to the criticism of his team's No. 1 seed in a Cleveland Plain-Dealer story Saturday.

"We, on paper, earned it and, on paper, deserved it," Foster said. "The fact of the matter is Tennessee lost two games to unranked teams at the end of the season, and the committee saw that and judged it.

"She (Summitt) knew you guys were going to react, bottom line, and wanted that. You can use the pulpit for a lot of reasons."

Summitt just laughed when asked about Foster's comments at Saturday afternoon's practice.

In fact, she probably wouldn't have had a problem with a No. 2 seed if her team had been placed in the same regional with Ohio State. She beat Foster routinely when he was the head coach at Vanderbilt, and the Lady Vols would match up much better with Ohio State than they would with North Carolina.

The Lady Vols are 30-4 against the nation's toughest schedule. They won 13 of 15 games against top-25 teams and four of six against top-10 teams. They beat No. 1 seed LSU for the SEC tournament championship.

And they deserved a No. 1 seed over Ohio State.

Rutgers deserved a better deal, too. It went 16-0 in the Big East and beat UConn twice, yet it was given a No. 3 seed in the toughest regional while UConn got a No. 2 seed and a regional in its home state.

"The integrity of the game deserves to have a fairness demonstrated," said Stringer, speaking not just about her team but the overall selection process.

Not all coaches see a value in the criticism.

"I think there's too much complaining about the committee," Purdue coach Kristy Curry said. "It's time to play. If you sit around and criticize, you're missing a dadgum good tournament."

But Stringer, Summitt and Hatchell carry more weight than your garden-variety whiners. They have combined to win 2,372 games. They also have a track record of promoting the game as well as their teams.

"Until everybody feels the same sense of rage, there isn't going to be change," Stringer said. "It can't just be the profile schools."

The three elite coaches hope to make that point at next weekend's convention. Stringer said some members of the selection committee already have been receptive to their complaints, and "they probably realize what happened didn't make a lot of sense."

"There's no justification (for what the selection committee did)," Stringer added. "You can't take that back. But we can make it better for the others."