NCAA tournament 2011 — running thread

Dude, I love this, but even I have to point out that there's an extra "Tech" (and a missing "i") in there.

Edit: I'd also replace Maryland and BC with N.C. State and Wake Forest.

 

I meant to look this up a week ago, after the brackets were announced.

FWIW, the number of games over the past 15 years that a team has played games in the first four rounds of the tournament in its home state:

18 Duke
16 North Carolina
10 UCLA
No one else has more than 7.

 

In all fairness, there's a number of NCAA-worthy arenas in North Carolina (RBC Center, Greensboro Coliseum, Joel Coliseum, Time-Warner Arena [and the old new Charlotte Coliseum before that). As such, it's hard to imagine more than two tournaments in a row in which a North Carolina facility isn't at least hosting first weekend games. And hey, look at that, Duke and North Carolina happen to be good that year! Damn lucky break!

 

In 1979, North Carolina and Duke were eliminated from the East regional, which was being held somewhere in North Carolina, Greensboro, I think. There were like 5000 people in the arena for the Penn-St. John's regional final. After this hideous display of provincialism, the NCAA should've banned the state from being a tourney site in perpetuity. I mean, it's not like Virginia and South Carolina don't have arenas, too.

 

Hell, you had a 15 seed (Utah) hosting a 2 seed (Notre Dame) this year. Ridiculous.

The bid system is atrocious. I covered one of the regionals in Chicago five years back, and for the Kentucky-Chattanooga game in the mid-afternoon, there were fewer than 800 people in a 16,000-seat arena for the game. Brutal.

 

The only arena in Virginia that the NCAA would use is Richmond Coliseum, and at 12,500 for basketball, it may be too small now. Does the NCAA not use on-campus facilities for the men's tournament at all, or is that just how it works out? Because that would put UVa.'s arena into play too.

And if you're going to ding the state of North Carolina for not packing the house because Duke and UNC were gone, shouldn't you also ding Penn and St. John's for not having more people down there, given that it's a reasonable drive from both campuses? It's not like it was Gonzaga vs. Southern Cal.

 

Impossible. This is the greatest sporting spectacle of the year. Madness! Madness!

 

To expand on MM's post: Virginia's largest arena (the John Paul Jones Arena at UVA) seats at least 3,500 fewer than Time Warner in Charlotte, which is smaller than the arenas in Greensboro, Chapel Hill and Raleigh. USC's Colonial Life Arena would be a great place to host, but the NAACP boycott of the state rules that out.

 

Until I went to a regional in Greensboro, I was critical of the favorable treatment North Carolina got.

After being there, not so much. The area loves college basketball. It's not 1979 any more either. The tournament is obviously bigger now.

 

Interesting...I'm of the mindset that the ACC needs to get its tournament out of Greensboro for perception reasons. I think that's one of the reasons (far from the only one) that the conference has slipped in prestige in recent years. The Big East is at MSG, the SEC is in Atlanta, the Big Televen is in Indy and the ACC is still, relative to those events, in Mayberry. Getting it to a bigger city would do a lot to make it more of an event.

 

Big cities where the ACC tournament could be held.
1. Atlanta -- Scheduling problem with ACC
2. Tampa-St. Pete -- see ACC football championship for details of why not.
3. Washington, D.C. -- Should be there on rotating basis, due to Maryland and the two Virginia schools.
4. Boston -- It'd sell out for sure, but it's incredibly inconvenient for all schools but one.
5. Miami -- Oh, please.

By process of elimination, alternating D.C. and Charlotte seems like the best option.

 

I don't agree. This might be a bad analogy because college baseball has such a long way to go to be a significant player in the overall American sports scene, but if the powers that be ever consider moving the CWS out of Omaha -- a relative cow town compared to other potential venues -- that would show they just don't get it.

In some ways, Greensboro seems to me to be to ACC hoops what Omaha is to college baseball. Now, I'm very much an outsider saying this and maybe the ACC crowd will step forward and tell me I'm on crack.

I don't think Charlotte's a bad option either, but I get the sense that folks in Charlotte aren't as devoted to college hoops as they are in Greensboro.

As far as other cities Michael listed, I think having it in DC from time to time would be a good idea.