They’re not underdogs. They’re hardly unknown. What they are is a group of new teams with well-recognized names in the NCAA Tournament, and they’re hoping to keep making life hard on some of the programs that have long had a stranglehold on March.
NCAA Senior Vice President of Basketball Dan Gavitt responded to athletes’ renewed demands for compensation Thursday by saying he supports and encourages their right to free speech within the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament’s rules.
Along with a morale boost, the NCAA Tournament will serve as a major economic boost for our downtown businesses and outlying areas.
This is life at a basketball tournament being played in a pandemic. The unspoken message: If players came to Indianapolis hoping for fun and games, they are not in the right place—at least not until tip-off.
Tony Hinkle left behind a chance to play for the 1921 and 1922 World Series baseball champions, a team that won four consecutive pennants. All he did at Butler instead was change the sport of basketball—forever.
Waiting in Indianapolis for the tournament to start, some college basketball stars on Wednesday tweeted #NotNCAAProperty as a reference to the ongoing fight to earn money for things like sponsorship deals, online endorsement and personal appearances.
All those delays for COVID-19 cases that 27 of the 68 teams in the NCAA Tournament went through during the season could end up benefitting them now that they’ve arrived in Indianapolis.
From the moment fans land in Indianapolis, there’s no denying the tournament’s excitement—with prominent March Madness signage placed throughout the terminal, pop-up retail shops with apparel and memorabilia, local artwork and live musicians. It’s genuinely a pre-game to the experience in downtown Indy and throughout the host sites.
The 68-team men’s tournament, which starts Thursday, is usually staged in 14 cities across the country. Here’s how Indianapolis plans to pull off the whole thing all by itself.
Hinkle, Wooden, Knight and Keady form the Mount Rushmore of basketball innovation in Indiana, where successful coaches have spent more than a century testing novel concepts, breaking barriers and polishing philosophies before introducing them to America.
The NCAA is giving fans an opportunity to buy cardboard cutouts of themselves to be sent to the games at a cost of $100 apiece, with a portion of the purchase price going to the United Way of Central Indiana’s COVID-19 relief effort.
The NCAA said only one of the officials tested positive for the virus, but the other five were “identified as exposure risks due to prolonged close contact.”
Despite the current gridlock, NCAA President Mark Emmert said he is still hopeful the NCAA will have uniform national name, image and likeness rules in place before the start of next football season.
Six of the arenas that helped create Indiana’s basketball legacy will go on full display when the NCAA Tournament tips off later this week.
Although the University of Louisville is the first alternate to fill an open spot in the NCAA Tournament, Coach Chris Mack isn’t optimistic. Meanwhile, potential replacement squads Colorado State, Saint Louis and Mississippi are prepared to play in the National Invitation Tournament.
On Friday in Indianapolis, Lisa Byington will become the first woman to call play-by-play for an NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament game.
The Indiana Criminal Justice Institute says its Sober Ride Indiana pilot program will provide ride credits to the first 10,000 total rides through April 5. The program coincides with St. Patrick’s Day and the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament.
Teams must undergo a quarantine and testing period when they arrive in Indianapolis—and no one from the schools was allowed to make the trip without seven consecutive days of negative tests.
Forty-six teams had arrived in Indianapolis for the NCAA men’s basketball tournament by late Sunday, and each was given a COVID-19 test upon arrival.
IBJ columnist and investigative reporter Greg Andrews explains why the rights to March Madness are so valuable even as the media landscape changes quickly. And he tells host Mason King why it’s unlikely that the NCAA or its broadcast partners will want to renegotiate the deal—which runs through 2032.
