NCAA Tournament - Twin Cities

Hopefully some of the more enlightened minds can help me out here and clarify some points.

I've been curious why the Twin Cities (Target Center or Xcel) hasn't hosted NCAA tournament games. The last time I remember it being here at all was the regional final I attended back in the day at the Dome (in the Florida Joakim Noah days). Maybe with a renovated TC - hosting the 1st/2nd rounds would be a possibility?

In regards to that. When the regional final was here - I believe we were the host school. Is it true that that the U couldn't play at TC if it were the host school?

Are there requirements to being the host school? Could it be a school like Augsburg or SDSU instead of the Gophers...allowing the Gophers to play here?

It would be a blast to have the NCAA tournament here on a semi regular basis. Whether it's 1st/2nd round, regional finals...or the Final Four like we're getting shortly. I know this is the State of Hockey but there are a lot of basketball fans as well! The Barn is rocking when the Gophers are good and even when the Wolves are semi-decent, TC has good attendance.

Part of the problem with the Target Center and the Xcel Energy Center is that they get booked up for these Hockey games (Target center only for the NCHA recently) and the HS BB and Hockey games.

Lots of NHL arenas host NCAA BB tourney games and the Xcel Energy Center is a better arena than most and that includes for basketball. The Xcel Energy Center is a better basketball arena than the Target Center pre and post renovation, but we never see any talk of games being held there. Also, there seems to be mentality in the TC over the years that these games have to be in the big building, and that goes back to when the NCAA used to have non final four games in domes.

I think that the Target Center and X need to be more open to bidding on earlier round games. If the Arena in Milwaukee (soon to be replaced) hosts games all the time, why cannot we have games here?


My lord, even the Dayton Arena hosts games, and that place is one step below the crappy, sub Met Center era arena 30 minutes down the road in Downtown Cincinnati next to the ballparks. Why they play in Dayton rather than the US Bank Arena in Cincy or the Columbus Blue Jacket arena is beyond me if they are looking for a central point for travel to and from the "first four".

pharmacygopher said:

Hopefully some of the more enlightened minds can help me out here and clarify some points.

I've been curious why the Twin Cities (Target Center or Xcel) hasn't hosted NCAA tournament games. The last time I remember it being here at all was the regional final I attended back in the day at the Dome (in the Florida Joakim Noah days). Maybe with a renovated TC - hosting the 1st/2nd rounds would be a possibility?

In regards to that. When the regional final was here - I believe we were the host school. Is it true that that the U couldn't play at TC if it were the host school?

Are there requirements to being the host school? Could it be a school like Augustana or SDSU instead of the Gophers...allowing the Gophers to play here?

It would be a blast to have the NCAA tournament here on a semi regular basis. Whether it's 1st/2nd round, regional finals...or the Final Four like we're getting shortly. I know this is the State of Hockey but there are a lot of basketball fans as well! The Barn is rocking when the Gophers are good and even when the Wolves are semi-decent, TC has good attendance.

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1. Target Center has been kind of a dump for the past decade or so, With the new renovations it would be a decent candidate as a 1st/2nd or regional final site. The other big issue is all the other events held there. State boys basketball, state girls basketball, NCHC tournament, and T-Wolves games are all in March. Lots of moving parts. I'm sure there would be ways to work out the scheduling if they really wanted to be a NCAA tourney site, but it would probably involve moving one of those other tournaments to a different site for a year. Good news is the NCAA has gone away from domes as regional sites.

2. Hosts can't play at their own site.

3. Not sure exactly who all is eligible to host. Doesn't have to be a school...conferences can be the host. And a school can play at site where their conference is the host. Here's an article that talks a little about the criteria -- http://www.ncaa.com/news/basketball...-process-underway-2016-18-tourney-preliminary

bizzle22 said:

1. Target Center has been kind of a dump for the past decade or so, With the new renovations it would be a decent candidate as a 1st/2nd or regional final site. The other big issue is all the other events held there. State boys basketball, state girls basketball, NCHC tournament, and T-Wolves games are all in March. Lots of moving parts. I'm sure there would be ways to work out the scheduling if they really wanted to be a NCAA tourney site, but it would probably involve moving one of those other tournaments to a different site for a year. Good news is the NCAA has gone away from domes as regional sites.

2. Hosts can't play at their own site.

3. Not sure exactly who all is eligible to host. Doesn't have to be a school...conferences can be the host. And a school can play at site where their conference is the host. Here's an article that talks a little about the criteria -- http://www.ncaa.com/news/basketball...-process-underway-2016-18-tourney-preliminary

Click to expand...

I went to NCAA 1st & 2nd round games at the United Center in 1998 in Chicago and that is home to the Bulls & Blackhawks. They managed to squeeze it in, I'm sure they can plan far enough ahead to make it work.


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I do know the Xcel will no longer host the Big Ten or WCHA hockey tournaments, since they are moving back to campus, the NCHC doesn't really draw well except for the 6-7K UND tends to bring down. Could see them moving to the Xcel when the deal with Target Center is up or even doing on campus playoffs, the draw to doing conference tourney's in the TWin Cities has really gone down hill with the break up of the old WCHA. Point is the NCHC is usually during the first weekend of March Madness and the boys state basketball tourney is usually during the sweet 16 weekend. There are years where the Xcel has hosted a hockey regional the same weekend, no reason they couldn't do a basketball one either.

I think the other events play a role but this is my theory and keep in mind, it's just a guess:

There's only so many cities around the country that have had a domed stadium and one that could be configured to host NCAA Tournament basketball. NBA/NHL arenas are a dime a dozen and pretty much every relatively large metropolitan area has some type of arena that could host the event. My guess is if they were going to have MSP as a host, they were going to use the dome as it could host more people and likely draw more cash as well. Basically, we had the setup so why not use it? That's my theory on why the TC or the X haven't ever really been considered.

As far as the U being a host, I have a tough time seeing it ever being different. This is the only D1 program in the state and while there are cases where a conference is the host of the site, it tends to be because there are multiple programs in that metro area or there are none (or they want to provide a sly way of letting certain programs play close to home)

Target Center and Xcel should switch hosting each year for either 1st/2nd round or a Regional. It is a major airline hub and extremely easy to get to. Having these tourney games in places like Spokane, Sacramento, Des Moines and a host of other non major markets is insane. So hard to travel to those types of cities.

Xcel is actually a pretty poor basketball facility, the layout is very unorthodox.

I'm looking forward to checking out the renovated Target Center though.