TheBand Posted March 8, 2016 Share Posted March 8, 2016 WASHINGTON (AP) — Down the street from teams that play in the Big Ten and Atlantic 10, and inside the arena that hosts Big East basketball for several months a year, the Atlantic Coast Conference is flexing its muscles. The ACC doesn't have a so-called home team for its tournament this week at Verizon Center. In Maryland's backyard, with Virginia and Virginia Tech the closest teams, the conference is ready to put on a show away from its usual home site in North Carolina. The ACC Tournament has been held in North Carolina 51 of the past 62 years. A return to Washington this year before two stops in Brooklyn is a signal that the conference is confident it can succeed on its own merits, without needing a particular host school to drive interest. More Here: http://collegebasketball.ap.org/article/why-washington-acc-flexes-muscles-big-basketball-market N.C. State coach Mark Gottfried prefers the closeness of so many schools to Greensboro and worried about what it'll be like so far away at Barclays Center in a year. "I think D.C. and Brooklyn are going to be a little harder for a lot of our fans," Gottfried said. "I kind of always liked Greensboro, having done it now for a number of years." Verizon Center will be the first arena to host three different conference tournaments in as many years with the Big Ten in town next year and the Atlantic 10 in 2017. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cowboy Posted March 8, 2016 Share Posted March 8, 2016 -sure Mark, everyone would like their conf tourney less than 100 miles from their campus, that can happen in high school, not so much in college at this point Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brianstl Posted March 8, 2016 Share Posted March 8, 2016 When you got team is Louisville, South Bend, Pittsburgh, Syracuse, and Boston it is hard to justify playing the ACC tournament in Dixie every year. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
billikenfan05 Posted March 8, 2016 Share Posted March 8, 2016 Couldn't we get the tourney in Memphis or somewhere in KY Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kshoe Posted March 8, 2016 Share Posted March 8, 2016 Couldn't we get the tourney in Memphis or somewhere in KY Which tournament are you referencing? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pistol Posted March 8, 2016 Share Posted March 8, 2016 This is just like the A10 flexing its neutral site muscle by holding its conference tournament in Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City for several years. I forgot the A10 was moving to DC in 2017. How long is that deal for? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
billikenfan05 Posted March 8, 2016 Share Posted March 8, 2016 Which tournament are you referencing?A10 somewhere that wouldn't be a ridiculous travel destination for fans Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bay Area Billiken Posted March 8, 2016 Share Posted March 8, 2016 A10 somewhere that wouldn't be a ridiculous travel destination for fans It is for the East Coast, and the A10 is still an East Coast centric league, mixed with outposts Dayton and especially SLU. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bay Area Billiken Posted March 8, 2016 Share Posted March 8, 2016 This is just like the A10 flexing its neutral site muscle by holding its conference tournament in Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City for several years. I forgot the A10 was moving to DC in 2017. How long is that deal for? The A10 Tournament is in Pittsburgh in 2017, and in Washington, D.C. in 2018. Then it returns to Brooklyn in 2019, and also in 2020 and 2021. The ACC is moving the A10 out of Brooklyn for the next 2 years, following the current '16 A10 Tournament in Brooklyn. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kshoe Posted March 8, 2016 Share Posted March 8, 2016 A10 somewhere that wouldn't be a ridiculous travel destination for fans 12 of the 14 teams play in states that touch the Atlantic ocean and you want to move the tournament to somewhere like Memphis or Kentucky? In my best Chris Carter voice: Come on man Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
billikenfan05 Posted March 8, 2016 Share Posted March 8, 2016 12 of the 14 teams play in states that touch the Atlantic ocean and you want to move the tournament to somewhere like Memphis or Kentucky? In my best Chris Carter voice: Come on man I'm selfish. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Taj79 Posted March 9, 2016 Share Posted March 9, 2016 To be fair f05, we have lived your dream. Back in the Midwestern Cities Conference days, the tournament was held annually at Market Square Arena in Indy. Part of the demise of that conference was giving Dayton the tournament hosting rights for three years to get them to join it around 1988. Some might even say the MCC giving Dayton that perk made Marquette not want to carry them to the Great Midwest formation in 1991. Dayton finally got on board in the Great Midwest 1993 but then we all bolted to the new Conference USA in 1995. We left Dayton stone cold, and they were forced to find a landing spot which became the A10 in 1995. Conference USA then dissed us with most heading off into the Big East in 05-06. We were left to find a landing spot much like Dayton ten years earlier and we opted to land again with them. CUSA also tried to rotate its conference tournament in our ten years there. First was Memphis, then St. Louis, then Cincinnati, and then Birmingham. I went to all but Memphis. After Birmingham in 1998-99, CUSA decided that, based on the fact that the biggest schools with the best traveling contingents were UC, UofL and Memphis, all tournaments would revolve amongst those three sites. The rich got richer but instead of just Dayton as with the MCC, CUSA went to the Big Three. kshoe is right in what he says about the Atlantic Ocean. It is the Atlantic 10 unfortunately. Members that have left also include Penn State, Pitt, Rutgers, Temple, Nova, Virginia Tech and West Virginia. No, our league should be either the Big East or create the Papal Conference but that statement is not meant to dredge that topic up. If we were a state school, I could understand a call for the Valley. Let's face it, if we were in the Beast, we'd be off to New York City every year anyway. No East Coast option -- Brooklyn, Atlantic City, DC or Pittsburgh works for us. And based on experience, avoid Dayton. Given the current geography, a Midwestern locale is a pipe dream. Good suggestion. Won't happen. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cowboy Posted March 9, 2016 Share Posted March 9, 2016 To be fair f05, we have lived your dream. Back in the Midwestern Cities Conference days, the tournament was held annually at Market Square Arena in Indy. Part of the demise of that conference was giving Dayton the tournament hosting rights for three years to get them to join it around 1988. Some might even say the MCC giving Dayton that perk made Marquette not want to carry them to the Great Midwest formation in 1991. Dayton finally got on board in the Great Midwest 1993 but then we all bolted to the new Conference USA in 1995. We left Dayton stone cold, and they were forced to find a landing spot which became the A10 in 1995. Conference USA then dissed us with most heading off into the Big East in 05-06. We were left to find a landing spot much like Dayton ten years earlier and we opted to land again with them. CUSA also tried to rotate its conference tournament in our ten years there. First was Memphis, then St. Louis, then Cincinnati, and then Birmingham. I went to all but Memphis. After Birmingham in 1998-99, CUSA decided that, based on the fact that the biggest schools with the best traveling contingents were UC, UofL and Memphis, all tournaments would revolve amongst those three sites. The rich got richer but instead of just Dayton as with the MCC, CUSA went to the Big Three. kshoe is right in what he says about the Atlantic Ocean. It is the Atlantic 10 unfortunately. Members that have left also include Penn State, Pitt, Rutgers, Temple, Nova, Virginia Tech and West Virginia. No, our league should be either the Big East or create the Papal Conference but that statement is not meant to dredge that topic up. If we were a state school, I could understand a call for the Valley. Let's face it, if we were in the Beast, we'd be off to New York City every year anyway. No East Coast option -- Brooklyn, Atlantic City, DC or Pittsburgh works for us. And based on experience, avoid Dayton. Given the current geography, a Midwestern locale is a pipe dream. Good suggestion. Won't happen. -thanks for the history, Taj, interesting -I do remember the CUSA tourney at Keil/Savvis/Scottrade, after his last game Jeff Harris went around the stands to tell people thanks for attending and shook a bunch of hands, classy move on his part Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Taj79 Posted March 9, 2016 Share Posted March 9, 2016 As is the case, tournaments are awarded a few years in advance. When Harris was a freshman, he played on and went to two NCAAs with Claggs and Hmark. If you subscribe to my theory, then the St. Louis tournament hosting was awarded coming off the then-greatest run in SLU modern history. By the time the actuality of the event occurred, we were down to 16 and 14 in Harris' junior year and closed with 11 and 18 his senior year. Attendance was also down. So the showing in St. Louis was less-than-stellar at Scottrade. I remember Harris' final game too. He fouled out late in a miserable team performance where we lost to Cincinnati and Bob Huggins, 71 to 43. He fouled out on our defensive end so when they tooted the horn and raised the five fingers, he had to walk the length of the court past the UC bench to our bench. Huggins stopped him and hugged him goodbye. That was the classiest sign of respect I ever saw from one opposing coach to another team's player. In the Brad years, I had the opportunity to go out drinking with Jeff, Carols McCauley, Cheryl Levrick, Doug McIlhagga and some of the others in the AD during one of the Atlantic City tournaments. Nice folks all and Jeff was still as humble and unassuming as ever. I won't say he started the "undersized Billiken front line" tradition. Dobbs and Robinson and Hudson and Gray all came before him. But those plus him plus Luke Meyer, Barry Eberhardt, Dwayne Evans and many others are a brethren within the brethern of Billiken team members. We are ALWAYS undersized -- or so it seems. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.