Lakefront 3-14-15

Basketball tournament at New Orleans isn’t strong attraction

By Roy Ockert Jr.

March 14, 2015

Like the Arkansas State University men’s basketball team, I did not go to New Orleans this week. Unlike the team, I chose not to make the trip.

It was the first time in about 10 years that wife Pat and I did not follow an ASU football or basketball team to a postseason event. This time the attraction just wasn’t sufficient to justify the time and expense.

That’s not to say the ASU women’s team under Coach Brian Boyer weren’t worthy of our support. In fact, by the end of the season we found the lady Red Wolves more interesting to watch. It’s always more fun to win than lose, and the women were obviously having more fun.

By the time you read this, the ASU women may or may not have won the Sun Belt Conference championship. But again this season they competed well at their level, and even the players on the bench seemed to enjoy being a part of the action. I wish I could say the same thing for the men.

If the women win the title, I will regret not having been there, but perhaps we can work something out for their first NCAA tournament game.

But the fact is that the Sun Belt powers-that-be have made the season-ending basketball tournament quite unattractive even to strong supporters of member schools.

After six years of holding the tournament in Hot Springs, the SBC decided to return the tournament in New Orleans — at Lakefront Arena, home of the University of New Orleans Privateers. One problem is that New Orleans dropped out of the SBC five or six years ago, and the tournament didn’t draw well there before that.

I love New Orleans, but Lakefront Arena isn’t anywhere near the part of the city that tourists want to visit. There are no hotels nearby and few restaurants. To attend the tournament, you have to find a place to stay that is probably at least 10 miles away and then brave interstate traffic to and from games, not to mention driving through some streets where you don’t want to stop and ask directions.

We went to the first tournament there last year and experienced all of that, including some hotel rates that had been jacked up supposedly because of a big convention in town. Going back for possibly one or two games just didn’t seem worth it, especially considering that two of the three possible ASU games were to be on ESPN3.

I’ll admit that I’m prejudiced about the Hot Springs venue because I was born and grew up there, and I still have family and friends there. Putting that aside, though, Hot Springs offered better basketball facilities and more reasonable accommodations — all within walking distance or at most a short drive.

For the SBC tournament the Convention Center put together a fine basketball court next to the regular arena so that two games could be played at the same time. At halftime you could walk a few steps and watch part of another game.

That also meant all schools in the conference could send both teams, and both tournaments could be completed in four days.

Moving to the single-court Lakefront Arena meant taking only the top eight teams in each division and stretching the competition over five days. That left the ASU men at home this year, and they had little to play for in the last few games of the season. Several other teams were in the same boat.

To make matters worse, as the SBC officials are wont to do, the 8-team men’s bracket was given a weird twist, which requires four teams to win four games in four days while the top two seeds need only win two. Yet the women’s bracket is a simple 8-team format that requires all eight teams to win three games for the championship and an NCAA tournament ticket.

Why the move?

Perhaps SBC officials wanted to stay home. The conference offices, for some strange reason, are in New Orleans — downtown in the Superdome.

Perhaps they thought more people would want to go to New Orleans than Hot Springs. New Orleans surely attracts more tourists overall.

But this is a basketball tournament, and it isn’t being held downtown. That raises the question how well are the games being attended. In fact, after the first event there last year, I asked that question in an e-mail to two conference officials, and I got no response.

Normally, you can tell what the attendance is for a major-college sporting event by consulting the box score. But the SBC is conspicuously leaving the attendance line blank on all games, including the finals.

Reportedly, SBC officials agreed to the move after much bellyaching from officials at Middle Tennessee State University and Western Kentucky University about the advantage ASU and University of Arkansas-Little Rock teams had in playing so close to home. And certainly games involving ASU and UALR drew the largest crowds at Hot Springs.

However, ASU teams never won a conference championship at Hot Springs; somehow only UALR teams benefitted.

Since then, Middle Tennessee and Western Kentucky have bolted from the Sun Belt for greener pastures, so that has become a non-issue.

Perhaps the SBC can find better facilities more centrally located to the present members than Hot Springs. If so, fine. But New Orleans doesn’t cut it.

If not, for that reason and others, ASU officials should look at other conferences, too.

Roy Ockert is editor emeritus of The Jonesboro Sun. He may be reached by e-mail at royo@suddenlink.net.