Madness may be reserved for Indy
The University of Maryland- Baltimore County pulled off one of the greatest upsets in American sports history at the 2018 NCAA Tournament, knocking off Virginia to become the first No. 16 seed to beat a No. 1.
The madness kept coming that March from Pittsburgh to San Diego. Top- ranked Xavier lost in the second round and so did No. 2 seeds North Carolina and Cincinnati. Two thirdseeded teams were bounced early, as were three No. 4 seeds during an opening weekend that epitomized the beloved spectacle the NCAA Tournament has become.
That coast- to- coast excitement won’t happen this season: The NCAA announced on Monday it plans to hold the entire 2021 men’s tournament in a single geographic area to mitigate the risks of COVID- 19. It is in talks with Indianapolis to serve as the host city.
Instead of all those upsets, buzzer beaters and star- turning performances being spread out at venues across the country, the bracket will be played out at sites in one city.
The news comes nine months after the coronavirus pandemic led to the cancellation of the 2020 tournaments, a severe economic blow not just to the host cities but scores of athletic departments across the country.
“It will be a very controlled environment,” NCAA senior vice president of basketball Dan Gavitt said. “It’ll be different, it’ll be historic and it’ll be hopefully something we all treasure and experience just once, hopefully not ever again.”
There was no immediate word on the women’s tournament, which runs concurrently in March and early April.
The pandemic has disrupted every sport for months now. The NBA and NHL completed their seasons in controlledenvironment bubbles and baseball trimmed its regular season to 60 games with a World Series played entirely in Texas and no home games for the L. A. Dodgers or Tampa Bay.
The original plan was for the 67 games of the 2021 NCAA Tournament to be played at 13 sites across the country, starting with the First Four in Dayton, Ohio. Regional sites were set for Minneapolis, Denver, New York City and Memphis, Tenn.
As COVID- 19 cases across the country spiked and wreaked havoc on the college football season, it became clear to the NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Committee that multiple sites would not work.
“We coalesced around a decision that we were not going to be able to host the tournament through 13 different sites,” Kentucky athletic director and committee chair Mitch Barnhart said.
Centralizing the tournament will allow a controlled environment with venues, practice facilities, lodging and medical resources all near one another. Indianapolis, the only city the NCAA is currently negotiating with, made the most sense since the Final Four was already scheduled there for April and NCAA headquarters is on the edge of downtown, walkable from various sites.