A negative person would argue that Danbury and Western Connecticut State University lost the NCAA Division III women’s basketball championships this week to another city.

A positive person -- and a more discerning one -- would say the NCAA is going elsewhere with its women’s Division III Final Four next season because Danbury and Western proved to the NCAA that neutral sites can work.

``I hope that’s the way the NCAA is looking at it,’’ said Western athletic director Ed Farrington. ``Everyone here did a great job with the tournament for three years.’’

Though no formal announcement has yet been made, the NCAA is packing its Final Four bags and heading for Terre Haute, Ind., and the Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology for its 2002 women’s Division III championships.

Terre Haute, a city of 65,000, is located on the Indiana-Illinois border and thus geographically situated in a central area for a national event. Besides being close to the NCAA’s new headquarters in Indianapolis, Terre Haute is within reasonable driving distance of Chicago, St. Louis and Louisville.

Rose-Hulman, a member of the sprawling Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference, is one of numerous Division III schools in the Ohio-Indiana-Illinois region, where Division III basketball regularly outdraws many other areas of the country.

For at least the next two seasons, the women’s champions will he held at Rose-Hulman’s Hulbert Arena, an impressive 2,000-seat facility that was built in 1997.

``We haven’t heard anything officially yet,’’ said Rose-Hulman athletic director Greg Ruark. ``But I received an email from our conference commissioner (Steve Argo) who said that we should be hearing something about the decision from the NCAA championship committee later this week. We’re pretty excited to see what they have to say.’’

Danbury, Western and the O’Neill Center played host to the Final Four in 1999, 2000 and 2001, marking the first three times the NCAA had ventured towards holding the national women’s finals in Division III at a predetermined site. Prior to 1999, the final two rounds were held on the home court of one of the four participants.

Though the first year of the experiment was marked by kinks in the organizational and logistical system, the NCAA awarded Western a two-year contract following its inaugural venture. Attendance leveled off the next two seasons in the 1,700 to 2,000 range per night at the 2,800-seat facility, but the organizational partnership and efficiency among all the parties involved flourished.

For its effort, Danbury was afforded the chance to be a part of NCAA history. In winning all three championships played in Danbury, Washington University became only the second women’s team -- in any division -- to win four consecutive national crowns.

During its Danbury run, Washington also became the first NCAA basketball team since the UCLA men of the late 1960s to win back to back national titles while going undefeated.

``It’s been a lot of fun,’’ said Farrington. ``We’ve met a lot of nice people from the different schools and the different areas of the country over the years, and it was fun being a part of history. Washington University is a very special program. And it was great having our own New England teams such as Salem State and Southern Maine make it here as well.

``The people in the organizing committee, Housatonic Valley Tourism, Dick Murray’s group and all the civic and service organizations involved were what made this work at Western,’’ Farrington added. ``It all brought a lot to the community, to the city of Danbury and to the University. It’s something people can be proud to have been a part of.’’

The Final Four injected approximately $1,000,000 annually into the Danbury-area economy. The three days of activities included a basketball clinic and autograph session put on by the four visiting teams, a championship banquet and the NCAA YES Clinic.

It’s doubtful anything could have been done differently to keep the tournament at the O’Neill Center. The NCAA has been anxious in recent years to try different venues for its various championships.

Even Salem, Va., the unofficial home of Division III championships, lost the baseball World Series recently to Wisconsin.

``It was a terrific event for our area and it’s extremely disappointing to not have it coming back,’’ said Kay Schreiber, a Housatonic Valley Tourism employee and co-chairperson of the organizing committee. ``A national championship … it doesn’t get any better than that. We put our heart and soul into this for three years. I don’t think we could have been any more hospitable and organized than we were.’’