This time, he was preparing to watch Wednesday night’s final game of the newly created First Four, between USC and Virginia Commonwealth. Since the four-game round was created last year as part of the expanded 68-team tournament and awarded to UD Arena, one of the biggest questions in the Miami Valley has been whether it will be coming back.
But first, Shaheen said, the Division I Men’s Basketball Committee will meet in May to decide if the First Four will even look the same next year.
“Should this be a two-site event or a one-site event?” he said. “Because there are things we wouldn’t have known about the First Four until we actually did it.”
Coaches, administrators, journalists and even Shaheen himself praised UD Arena and the Miami Valley for the operation and environment created for the tournament.
Now, Dayton wants it back.
“Obviously we’ve made our intentions known,” said Tim Wabler, the UD athletic director. “We want this, and we want as many games as they would give us in this event.”
First Four challenges
Both the NCAA and UD learned about the event’s challenges from the time it was awarded to the arena in September.
The two-day attendance total at UD Arena was 20,217 in an arena configured for 12,900 seats. Wabler said ticket challenges included the teams’ brief stays in the area, increased pricing from the formerly one-game Opening Round and fans understanding which teams would be playing at UD Arena.
In traditional early tournament rounds, winning teams stay to play again two days later. For the First Four, each of the four winners left town (in most cases immediately) to travel to their second-round destination, so fans might not have traveled to Dayton because the stay was so brief.
The area hosted all 10 versions of the Opening Round, a single game that included the last two seeds in the tournament playing for the final No. 16 seed. Tickets last year were $13 for adults and $6 for children.
First Four tickets could mostly be purchased only for all four games at a cost of $117 for lower-arena seats and $97 for the upper arena.
But, the First Four was considered more appealing for viewers because, even though four of the teams were the last four seeds in the field, the other four were the final four at-large picks, and more traditionally known.
Fans didn’t always understand the product was considered better than the Opening Round, Wabler said.
“As late as last week, in Atlantic City, someone said to me, ‘Don’t you have the eight teams playing for the 16 seeds?’ ” Wabler said of his time at the Atlantic 10 Conference tournament. “We were always explaining that, during the entire process.”
Wabler said UD has worked with the NCAA to host multiple events, including men’s and women’s basketball and volleyball, to underline their commitment to staying a consistent option.
“We really want them to know when they need a go-to place for volleyball or basketball, they have University of Dayton Arena,” Wabler said. “I think they feel that too. It’s not just somebody trying to make a buck and run.”
‘A lot of interest’
After his team won the final First Four game late Wednesday night, VCU coach Shaka Smart bristled when asked if the event felt like part of the NCAA tournament, saying it was a “silly question” to suggest it didn’t.
“It gives us a win, and for it to be anything else, I don’t know what else it would have been other than an NCAA tournament game,” Smart said. “It’s not the NIT. The regular season’s over. And there’s a huge NCAA logo on the middle of the floor.”
Several teams and players praised UD Arena, the area and the atmosphere for the First Four, but the question remains whether it will return. Gene Smith, the Ohio State athletic director and chair of the men’s basketball committee, mentioned the loss of about 30 percent of the arena’s light because of a power surge just before Tuesday’s Clemson-UAB game as one of the few glitches during the two-day event.
UD Arena has the benefit of hosting experience and long-standing relationships with Shaheen and others in the NCAA leadership.
The reviews of the arena’s production of the inaugural event, though, were mostly positive.
“It’s exactly what we hoped for,” said Shaheen, “and very much what we’ve come to experience any time we’ve been in Dayton. ... The facility and community connect in a way that makes this a very special experience for everyone involved.”
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