NCAA looking at hosting the entire men's tournament in Indy/Indiana.
— Pat Forde (@ByPatForde) November 16, 2020
Pick a city for the opening weekend and do all games there. I would guess it would be a monster draw, but difficult for most cities could do.
Lucas Oil Stadium, Bankers Life Fieldhouse, Hinkle Fieldhouse (Butler, 9100 seats), and Indiana Farmers Coliseum (IUPUI, 6500 seats). Bloomington (IU) isn't much more than an hour away. Add another 15-20 minutes to the ride for Terre Haute and Indiana State.
Seating capacity won't matter if attendance is limited to families and AD staff, and it doesn't matter much for many of the early round games because they don't draw much in the best of times.
If the NCAA wants to pick a single city, Indianapolis is a good choice.
Typical 2nd/3rd round has 8 sites (four games thursday/friday, 2 games saturday/sunday)
Really only need four courts under this frame work, but courts at the student rec centers of IUPUI, Butler, and Marian could be used.
As you say, Indy is a good choice.
As can high school gyms.
High school courts are 84' long whereas colleges are 94'.
But will likely be a practice venue.
local joke.
my daughter actually wroked in the child-care center there for past couple years until she headed off to college.
The NCAA is headquartered there.
In past years staffers would have to travel to all the venues. With them all being local that would negate travel and hotels.
busted because a player(s) reacts to a whistle or horn from another game in the building.
Metro area. I didn't think there would be nearly enough for an event this size but it could actually work.
but i seem to recall the NFL more or less making upgraded hotels (i.e., JW Marriott) and additional rooms a requirement of rewarding Indianapolis the 2012 Super Bowl. I am not sure how explicit the deal was publicly but that's what was indicated to me.
I suspect the 500 draws more fans than the NCAA Tournament on a given weekend.
Most of the largest hotels are connected via a network of tunnels and enclosed walkways. You can get all over downtown Indy without even setting foot outside. One big, (sterile?) connected bubble.
I would guess the convention center would be set up with multiple floors, along with Banker's Life and Lucas Oil Stadium, at least for the early rounds. It wouldn't be hard to have 4-6 games going on simultaneously.
games max going on at the same time?
But an expanded field or compressed schedule could require it.
Presumably they want to minimize travel. In order to not have teams travel between the round of 32 and sweet 16 games (after the traditional first weekend) and also after the traditional second weekend, I wonder if they’d just play through with maybe an extra day of rest thrown in somewhere. 6 games in 2 weeks is a possibility.
champion and post season tourney champion make the field. If a mid major wins both they receive a better seed. After that you could just fill in based on Ken pom ramkings.