Vasquez for ACC POY

[Pedro Cerrano]

I would make Duke play real road games before January..That would be my first rule.

Haha, I'd sign off on that. But you need to be careful.

Nothing is stopping them from going to, say, Richmond where their fans can travel and calling it a "real road game"

[YardBirds13]

Getting in on the conference tournament thing....

It should be in Greensboro EVERY SINGLE YEAR. I hate Duke just as much as the next guy, but as someone who has gone to 7 of the last 8 ACC Tournaments (8 of 9 in 9 DAYS!), I can tell you that having it in Greensboro is BY FAR the best place to hold the tournament, and it isn't close.

I've been when they had it in DC and Tampa (and Charlotte, which was just OK), and it was really weak those years. The crowds just aren't the same. Look, I'd love for them to hold it in Charlottesville once every 12 years to help UVA out from a fan's perspective, but from the perspective of a guy who wants the best atmosphere possible for an ACC Tournament? There is nothing like Greensboro.

And I gotta say, if you are going to splurge and go to an event...go to an ACC Tournament in Greensboro. There is NOTHING to do around the stadium, and there is a giant parking lot, so everyone tailgates before the gamse and also in between sessions on Thursday/Friday. Flags of teams all over the place, and the best part is literally 95% of the people there have some sort of team gear on. The fans of every other team rally behind an underdog when it looks like they might pull an upset. You have Maryland and Duke fans rooting together against Carolina, Carolina and State fans rooting together against Duke. It is truly an atmosphere unrivaled in sports. There is almost always a buzzer beater or three in each session the first two days, and there are always superhuman performances (even from teams that don't win, Tim Pickett of FSU comes to mind the year the Terps won it in '04)

Seriously...if you are a fan of an ACC team...make the trip. Plan it out a year in advance, and do it. You won't regret it. Just make sure it's in Greensboro.

[Pedro Cerrano]

Getting in on the conference tournament thing....

It should be in Greensboro EVERY SINGLE YEAR. I hate Duke just as much as the next guy, but as someone who has gone to 7 of the last 8 ACC Tournaments (8 of 9 in 9 DAYS!), I can tell you that having it in Greensboro is BY FAR the best place to hold the tournament, and it isn't close.

I've been when they had it in DC and Tampa (and Charlotte, which was just OK), and it was really weak those years. The crowds just aren't the same. Look, I'd love for them to hold it in Charlottesville once every 12 years to help UVA out from a fan's perspective, but from the perspective of a guy who wants the best atmosphere possible for an ACC Tournament? There is nothing like Greensboro.

And I gotta say, if you are going to splurge and go to an event...go to an ACC Tournament in Greensboro. There is NOTHING to do around the stadium, and there is a giant parking lot, so everyone tailgates before the gamse and also in between sessions on Thursday/Friday. Flags of teams all over the place, and the best part is literally 95% of the people there have some sort of team gear on. The fans of every other team rally behind an underdog when it looks like they might pull an upset. You have Maryland and Duke fans rooting together against Carolina, Carolina and State fans rooting together against Duke. It is truly an atmosphere unrivaled in sports. There is almost always a buzzer beater or three in each session the first two days, and there are always superhuman performances (even from teams that don't win, Tim Pickett of FSU comes to mind the year the Terps won it in '04)

Seriously...if you are a fan of an ACC team...make the trip. Plan it out a year in advance, and do it. You won't regret it. Just make sure it's in Greensboro.

The teams themselves and the coaches couldn't care less about tailgating. Same goes with the fans that watch at home and don't make the trip (which accounts for 99%).

And I'm sorry, but you'll never convince me that a trip to Greensboro, NC is more fun or fulfilling than Miami or Boston, regardless of the event.

[YardBirds13]

The teams themselves and the coaches couldn't care less about tailgating. Same goes with the fans that watch at home and don't make the trip (which accounts for 99%).

And I'm sorry, but you'll never convince me that a trip to Greensboro, NC is more fun or fulfilling than Miami or Boston, regardless of the event.

Oh, I'm well aware. I actually agree it isn't particularly fair how they do it. I was purely speaking from a fan's perspective.

And no, of course the other cities have more to do and are more fun outside the arena. I was just talking strictly the basketball portion of the event. I loved the idea of it being in DC because it was so close, but it just wasn't the same atmosphere.

By the way, I find this conversation dripping with irony, that you want what's fair for the conference tournaments. Fair? There shouldn't be any fair in college basketball!

Oh, and I'm appointing myself to you and beaner's committee to run college basketball for two reasons:

1) Obviously I know you will try to put every team not from a Big 6 conference onto a giant ship and send them out to the middle of the ocean, never to return or steal a tournament spot from 16-12 Cincinnati.

2) How else is UVA ever going to make the tournament?

[The Epic]

The fans of every other team rally behind an underdog when it looks like they might pull an upset. You have Maryland and Duke fans rooting together against Carolina, Carolina and State fans rooting together against Duke.

I couldn't agree more. I love it when Duke or Carolina is suddenly in danger of being upset, and about 7/8 of the crowd becomes a fan of that underdog for about 45 minutes to an hour. There's nothing like it.

[Pedro Cerrano]

I couldn't agree more. I love it when Duke or Carolina is suddenly in danger of being upset, and about 7/8 of the crowd becomes a fan of that underdog for about 45 minutes to an hour. There's nothing like it.

...And this wouldn't happen in other arenas? Just because there is a greater turnout doesn't mean that the fans at the other venues aren't aware of what's going on.

[Sports Guy]

I would make Duke play real road games before January..That would be my first rule.

You mean like At Wisconsin and at Purdue?

[Pedro Cerrano]

You mean like At Wisconsin and at Purdue?

One of those was for the ACC/Big 10 right?

[beaner]

You mean like At Wisconsin and at Purdue?

They did play at Wisconsin this year..good job K!! I'm used to Duke "at" Davidson being played in Greensboro...

[The Epic]

...And this wouldn't happen in other arenas? Just because there is a greater turnout doesn't mean that the fans at the other venues aren't aware of what's going on.

It wasn't supporting Greensboro (I'd personally like a rotating schedule of Greensboro, Charlotte, Richmond and DC, but that's me)...I was just supporting something that he said.

[Pedro Cerrano]

Then they do their little "tourney tune up" game where they summon up the courage to go to NYC and play St. Johns...

[mweb]

The tourney isn't on tobacco road..Its usually in Greensboro, which is 50-60 miles away from that area.

Now, obviously that's close but guess what, a lot of the ACC teams are near there.

You have Duke, Wake, NC State and UNC all in the state of NC. With the league expanded, its not as high a percentage as it used to be but that was close to half the league before...Plus, UVA, MD and Clemson are all within 6 hours of there I believe, which is hardly some long drive.

The teams that generally get screwed are BC, GT, FSU and Miami but really, NC is as central point as any for the conference tourney.

It has been in DC...It has been in Atlanta and it will be in those places again but the most sensible place is for it to be in the state of NC.

I believe it being in DC was closer to the MD campus than Greensboro is to Tobacco Rd.

So basically what you are saying is that you think MD should have much more of an advantage as often as possible.

GT is a little closer to Greensboro than is MD. Otherwise I agree that location makes sense to have the tourney often. Would be nice if they switched it around a little more often though.

[Sports Guy]

Then they do their little "tourney tune up" game where they summon up the courage to go to NYC and play St. Johns...

They played at GTown this year..They have also been at Mich St and at Indiana in the recent past. They were at Michigan last year.

Duke plays a lot of their better non conference games in preseason tourneys and they usually have one MSG game a year against a top team.

Its not their fault they have a team where the colleges want a bigger gate to make more money.

Most schools, if any, don't draw as well on the road as Duke does now...So, its all about the almighty dollar.

[Pedro Cerrano]

They played at GTown this year..They have also been at Mich St and at Indiana in the recent past. They were at Michigan last year.

Duke plays a lot of their better non conference games in preseason tourneys and they usually have one MSG game a year against a top team.

Its not their fault they have a team where the colleges want a bigger gate to make more money.

Most schools, if any, don't draw as well on the road as Duke does now...So, its all about the almighty dollar.

I definitely don't disagree here but I feel like other top programs play more true road games...

[mweb]

Yea, the main reason I harped on Kansas is because they're usually one of the best (if not the best) program in the conference.

The Big East is probably the best example. They have several schools in the greater NY area (St. Johns, Hall, Rutgers, UConn, even Syracuse who has a huge fan base down there).

But they're so spread out geographically (all the way west to Wisconsin and Illinois) that I really think they need to consider moving that tournament around. Is it really fair for a team like Notre Dame or Louisville or Cincinnati to have to play their conference tournament in New York every year? I don't think so.

There is no perfect solution, but the Big East might do well to rotate their tournament between New York and Chicago, just to give those Big East teams in the mid-west a degree of fairness.

Well no one forced those schools to join a conference that didn't make sense for them in term of geography. I think the problem with your every team gets the tourney as much as any other plan is that some areas don't have suitable arenas other than the college's arena, some areas would struggle to support the tourney attendance wise, and some are very far out of the way for many of the schools in the conference.

In terms of the ACC, I don't think Boston should get the tourney, that's not really ACC territory, I'm not sure if enough people would travel there, and BC knew the deal when they came into the conference. I like your idea of using a few logical sites and rotating between them better. So Atlanta, Greensboro, and DC in the ACC. NYC, PHI or DC and maybe PIT. I wouldn't take the Big East tourney into the Midwest for the same reasons I wouldn't bring the ACC tourney to Boston. Pac 10 in LA, SF/Oak, Portland, and Phoenix. Etc...