Curious to get reaction about the idea of the bball tournament returning to conference members on campus arenas?

(03-13-2015 07:13 PM)RamblinRedWolf44 Wrote:  Curious to get reaction about the idea of the bball tournament returning to conference members on campus arenas?

So attend a conference tournament in Boone, Statesboro or Jonesboro? All fine college towns, but no thanks.

It's no secret that few, if any, fans from the lowest seeded teams attend the tournament. Until 1982 the SoCon's higher seeded teams hosted first round games and it worked really well. Good crowds vs playing in a empty arena. If UAB gets booted from CUSA I hope the SB grabs them to create a 12 team conference. To ensure your better teams have the best shot at making the tournament finals use a format that awards byes to the top 4 teams.

First round games 9 vs 12 / 10 vs 11 / 5 vs 8 / 6 vs 7 on Tuesday on home floor of higher seed.
Qtr Finals - 12-9 winner vs 1 / 11-10 winner vs 2 / 5-8 winner vs 4 / 6-7 winner vs 3 on Thursday.
Semi Finals on Friday.
Finals on Saturday.

Was attendance at Hot Springs better than what I am seeing in New Orleans on ESPN3?

(03-13-2015 08:02 PM)CrazyCajun Wrote:  

(03-13-2015 07:13 PM)RamblinRedWolf44 Wrote:  Curious to get reaction about the idea of the bball tournament returning to conference members on campus arenas?

So attend a conference tournament in Boone, Statesboro or Jonesboro? All fine college towns, but no thanks.

As a App fan I say no. Once the tournament left Asheville the SoCon played most of their tournaments in arenas that could be considered second home floors for teams. Six years at the North Charleston Arena where College of Charleston played numerous games per year. Four years in the Greensboro Coliseum which serves as a second floor for UNCG. Three years in Greenville, SC giving Furman & Wofford home court advantage. The real kicker was playing 3 tournaments on UTC's home floor. They won two of them.

As much as I'd like to see the tournament that close to me, Boone doesn't have the full service hotels necessaryd to host an event like that. Plus, the weather in March can be a tad unpredictable.

Attendance in New Orleans so far (at least this year) has been disappointing I think. Watching on ESPN3 there are lots and lots of empty seats.

I would not be a bit surprised if the conference decides to try somewhere else in the future. As I understand it New Orleans has it for 1 more year then it is up for grabs again.

You can forget hosting it at Hanner Fieldhouse. The conference would never agree to move it to a "high school looking" arena with a capacity of 4800.

(03-13-2015 09:13 PM)GaSoEagle Wrote:  Attendance in New Orleans so far (at least this year) has been disappointing I think. Watching on ESPN3 there are lots and lots of empty seats.

I would not be a bit surprised if the conference decides to try somewhere else in the future. As I understand it New Orleans has it for 1 more year then it is up for grabs again.

You can forget hosting it at Hanner Fieldhouse. The conference would never agree to move it to a "high school looking" arena with a capacity of 4800.

Would it be any better in Atlanta or Mobile? Judging from everyone's home attendance, I don't see how anyone could make such a claim. No matter where the conference tournaments is, some people will not be happy. A Big city venue like New Orleans, Mobile or Atlanta would all pretty much equal the same results.

(03-13-2015 08:43 PM)GaSoEagle Wrote:  Was attendance at Hot Springs better than what I am seeing in New Orleans on ESPN3?

Hot Springs rocked and the crowds were good.

Great setup with close hotels and eats.

I do think there is a decent chance to start allowing all teams to make the conference tourney with byes and probably double byes still part of it.

Some believe if all teams got to go attendance would be better.

But CrazyCajun makes a good point-- the attendance for basketball in this conference is not great really at any school, so I am not sure attendance at the conference tourney is going to be great no matter where it is. But I am certainly not against moving it to a smaller city/smaller venue and seeing if that will work.

I like the idea of moving it to the campus and then only taking 4 teams.

that allows for the travel needed and the regular season means even more. Basketball is an after thought to the league at this point. Fans are not going to travel for the most part so take the cheapest route and just host it at the winning teams. They will put butts in seats.

What made Asheville work for the SoCon was that the city wasn't that much bigger than the tournament. The city embraced the tournament and the arena was right in the middle of downtown. Not to mention it's a solid neutral court that's about as central as you're gonna get in the conference's footprint.

Screw it, can we just move the Sun Belt Tournament to Asheville? The SoCon is done by Monday.

(03-13-2015 09:36 PM)insideualr Wrote:  

(03-13-2015 08:43 PM)GaSoEagle Wrote:  Was attendance at Hot Springs better than what I am seeing in New Orleans on ESPN3?

Hot Springs rocked and the crowds were good.

Great setup with close hotels and eats.

You had MTSU, UNT and NT in the conference for most of those tournaments. Ark State and ULAR fans both came because your programs were contending at the time. Do you see fans coming to Hot Springs from App. State, GSU and Georgia Southern with no major airport? Ark State fans coming by the same number now when they aren't showing up for their home games? Hot Springs worked for the Sun Belt Conference, it no longer works for this conference today.

Terrible idea.

(03-13-2015 09:42 PM)T-Dog Wrote:  What made Asheville work for the SoCon was that the city wasn't that much bigger than the tournament. The city embraced the tournament and the arena was right in the middle of downtown. Not to mention it's a solid neutral court that's about as central as you're gonna get in the conference's footprint.

Screw it, can we just move the Sun Belt Tournament to Asheville? The SoCon is done by Monday.

Yeah, Hot Springs was the only site we've had that embraced the tournament. But there were a lot of people who insisted the tourney be moved to a destination town, so more fans could go. Hot Springs had the distinct disadvantage of being a small vacation town, which is famous for a lot of New Englanders moving their for theiir retirement years. A lot of fans insisted we could draw better in a bigger city and more people would be interested.

So far, attendance is far worse than anything Hot Springs ever put up..

(03-13-2015 11:34 PM)chiefsfan Wrote:  

(03-13-2015 09:42 PM)T-Dog Wrote:  What made Asheville work for the SoCon was that the city wasn't that much bigger than the tournament. The city embraced the tournament and the arena was right in the middle of downtown. Not to mention it's a solid neutral court that's about as central as you're gonna get in the conference's footprint.

Screw it, can we just move the Sun Belt Tournament to Asheville? The SoCon is done by Monday.

Yeah, Hot Springs was the only site we've had that embraced the tournament. But there were a lot of people who insisted the tourney be moved to a destination town, so more fans could go. Hot Springs had the distinct disadvantage of being a small vacation town, which is famous for a lot of New Englanders moving their for theiir retirement years. A lot of fans insisted we could draw better in a bigger city and more people would be interested.

So far, attendance is far worse than anything Hot Springs ever put up..

Different time and different conference. You recently admitted Ark. State fans won't buy more season tickets until a new coach wins and somehow we are supposed to believe your fan base will come watch a tournament again in the same numbers because it is located in Hot Springs again? Not buying it!

The Sun Belt is not a conference that can go to 10 neutral different cities and draw well. New Orleans is too big for the tournament as the vast majority of people don't care. The SoCon figured that out with Asheville after being away for 15 years. SoCon also benefitted that despite membership changes, the footprint of the league stayed the same.

Hot Springs was good in the old Sun Belt, probably not the new Sun Belt. But if there are any good alternatives, name em, besides Asheville.

Attendance will only improve once we, as a conference, start playing better. No one is showing up for teams that have no impressive wins. If the SBC didn't have an auto bid, none of us would be going dancing this year. We are bad, top to bottom. I hope GaSo wins the tourny, that way the SBC has two teams in post season play. GaSt in the NIT and GaSo in the NCAA, both on an auto bid.

We may have won the football side of conference expansion, but we lost on the basketball side. Would like to see UAb come back to the league to help us out a bit.

(03-13-2015 11:45 PM)CrazyCajun Wrote:  

(03-13-2015 11:34 PM)chiefsfan Wrote:  

(03-13-2015 09:42 PM)T-Dog Wrote:  What made Asheville work for the SoCon was that the city wasn't that much bigger than the tournament. The city embraced the tournament and the arena was right in the middle of downtown. Not to mention it's a solid neutral court that's about as central as you're gonna get in the conference's footprint.

Screw it, can we just move the Sun Belt Tournament to Asheville? The SoCon is done by Monday.

Yeah, Hot Springs was the only site we've had that embraced the tournament. But there were a lot of people who insisted the tourney be moved to a destination town, so more fans could go. Hot Springs had the distinct disadvantage of being a small vacation town, which is famous for a lot of New Englanders moving their for theiir retirement years. A lot of fans insisted we could draw better in a bigger city and more people would be interested.

So far, attendance is far worse than anything Hot Springs ever put up..

Different time and different conference. You recently admitted Ark. State fans won't buy more season tickets until a new coach wins and somehow we are supposed to believe your fan base will come watch a tournament again in the same numbers because it is located in Hot Springs again? Not buying it!

We'd have several hundred in Hot Springs to watch the Women alone. The Women's final this year would have 3500 people at it by itself, perhaps even more if it was in Hot Springs. We might have 500 tomorrow night for it.

The issue is, where are the Cajun and Jaguar fans who were supposed to make up the large portion of the attendance for this one. By many reports, there were less than a thousand people there tonight to watch the Four closest teams to New Orleans by Geography in the league. That's awful. At least we knew there would be local interest in the Hot Springs event, but this thing is empty, and its embarrassing.

If you go read the C-USA board, most of the WKU, LA Tech, and UTEP fans are overly butthurt that they were sent home from Birmingham. In reality it works out better for attendance than playing neutral site. That is, until the host team wins games that it might not on a truly neutral floor.

Near campus venues work really well in all honesty. It doesn't have to be at the on campus site. One of the GA schools host it in the Hawk's arena or the city of Mobile hosts it in Mobile Civic Center.

We need a home for the tournament like the MVC in Saint Louis.

That was Hot Springs.

WAC killer just can't get out of his own way.