NCAA Senior Vice President of Basketball Dan Gavitt said the successful tournament held primarily in Indianapolis and exclusively in Indiana could create a late-round model for future tourneys.
TV ratings were down nearly 14% from the last NCAA men’s basketball title game, between Virginia and Texas Tech in 2019.
IBJ reporter Mickey Shuey, who has been covering the Indianapolis hospitality industry from the start of the pandemic the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament, interviewed dozens of people in an effort to piece together how the city is working to emerge from the pandemic.
Officials on Tuesday also released attendance figures for the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament’s 66 games—all played in Indiana.
We hoteliers welcome the business that the NCAA has brought but worry about what the future holds. To use a metaphor many people are experiencing these days, the tournament was a shot in the arm, but does not inoculate us against continued losses.
Randy Fishman had the best seat in the house for Monday night’s championship, located courtside and smack dab in the middle. Friends watching the game on television would have seen him just above the black line running across midcourt.
With the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament, we were able to show that Downtown Indianapolis is just as vibrant as ever. Now, don’t retreat back inside as basketball fans leave our fair city.
With no nearby direct flights to Indianapolis available, Baylor University and Gonzaga University fans had to go well out of their way to attend the culmination of the 2021 NCAA men’s basketball season Monday night.
Indiana University is still the last undefeated national men’s Division I basketball champion, winning in 1976.
New Indiana University Men’s Basketball Coach Mike Woodson on Monday added Dane Fife as associate coach. Fife played on former IU Coach Bob Knight’s final team and helped lead IU to the 2002 national championship game.
Fife spent the last 10 seasons working on Tom Izzo’s staff at Michigan State, the final three as associate head coach.
Check back here for the latest stories, plus tidbits about the NCAA tournament in Indianapolis.
I can confidently say that bringing the buzz of college basketball back to our city was only possible through the everyone’s efforts to mask up, socially distance, and operate within the constructs of necessary public health orders. We must not let up now.
From seemingly small issues of inequality in NCAA Tournament weight rooms to life-and-death issues of police brutality and endemic racism, athletes are increasingly calling for change, intent on molding what the future should look like for everyone.
The meeting Monday is one most hoops fans have waited for all year — two years, really — a matchup between two teams who have been on a collision course since the bracket came out.
The showdown between Baylor and Gonzaga that was called off in December because of the coronavirus pandemic is finally back on, with the biggest stakes of all: The two best teams all season will play for the national championship Monday night.
The only reason Baylor’s backcourt can’t be considered a true brotherhood is the blood coursing through their veins.
At age 84, the affable, silver-haired Bobby Plump remains one of the state’s top basketball ambassadors and nothing, not a pandemic or an unprecedented NCAA Tournament, can keep those yearning to meet him away.
IBJ Publisher Nate Feltman talks with Morris about the history of the city’s sports strategy and what it has meant for the Indy economy.
Not everyone in college sports believes it’s for the better as athletes get closer to earning money from third parties for use of their names, images or likenesses.
