“I’m always amazed at how smooth it goes,” said OHSAA Executive Director Doug Ute. “I’m getting really good reviews back from our schools who participated, and having a lot of good comments from fans. Of course, the best thing is, for the student-athlete, it gives them that Final Four experience.”
Credit: Bryant Billing
Credit: Bryant Billing
UD Arena has hosted tournament games for decades, witnessing countless memorable high school basketball finishes, including Fairmont’s comeback win over Princeton in the girls Division I state championship game on March 14.
“You witnessed it right there,” said Scott DeBolt, Executive Director of UD Arena, after the game. “That’s why we host them. We’re a basketball facility that really enjoys serving the community. That’s what UD Arena was originally built for.”
This year, Wright State got in on the action as well, hosting 18 state semifinal games.
“We had really good crowds,” said Joseph Dick, Wright State’s associate director of facilities and operations at the Nutter Center. “You never know when you’re hosting these kind of tournaments. As I used to say, some schools close the town down, roll up the sidewalks and everybody comes, and then some, you know, just family and friends come.”
The staff at both locations, Ute said, did a great job making the communities feel welcome.
“From the people who park you to the people who you meet when you enter to the concession people, the whole thing — everybody is so friendly," he said. “It’s that service with a smile type of thing. That’s so important to us, that our communities feel welcome and they certainly do at those places.”
Following the COVID-19 season in 2020, the OHSAA moved its state championships from Columbus to UD Arena, which hosted 24 boys and girls state tournament games annually from 2021 through 2024.
A year ago, the OHSAA expanded to seven divisions for boys and girls basketball and adopted a format similar to its football and soccer state championships. The semifinal games were held at neutral locations across the state and the winners would come to Dayton to play in the state championship games.
“We had some really good environments out there that the kids played in, but we heard from our coaches that their kids really wanted that Final Four experience,” Ute said. “I think it works out better this way.”
The OHSAA decided to return to a Final Four model, Ute said, and secured Wright State’s Nutter Center to host alongside UD Arena.
“It’s tough to play all those games in one location,” Dick said. “We just so happened to be available, and we have a good working relationship with those guys, came together on a deal to make it work and we’re back hosting the Final Four.”
Credit: Steven Wright
Credit: Steven Wright
Ute also praised Destination Dayton for helping find hotels and restaurants for teams, as well as area high schools who would allow teams to practice at their facilities.
“That’s special for us and our communities, and that’s what we want,” Ute said. “We want something more than just the game itself, and so we don’t feel like we just have a relationship with the two arenas. We feel like we have a relationship with the area. There’s an economic value to us to have our tournaments there and we appreciate the open arms we get from hotels and restaurants and those type of things. It makes it special for us.”
Wright State gets exposure to prospective students it may not have gotten if it didn’t host events like the state basketball and volleyball tournaments, Dick said.
“Whatever we can do to get people to see our campus is something that we want to do,” Dick said. “Maybe one of the kids that are playing this weekend on the court aren’t going to go to Wright State, but maybe a family member has walked around the Nutter Center and decided to Google Wright State, and they like what we have, program-wise, and they decided to come. That’s why we’re there. We’re there to have students come and get a good education.”
Credit: Bryant Billing
Credit: Bryant Billing
Dick grew up going to the state tournament games with his father in Columbus and previously served as a high school basketball official where he worked two state tournaments. Now, he’s able to host the games at his facility in Fairborn.
“It’s just a really cool thing,” Dick said. “We want to put on a top-rate tournament experience for all those students that are coming to play (in Dayton) and just show everybody that we just don’t do concerts, the Wright State basketball games or university events — we can do a whole lot of events, and that’s why the OHSAA has been coming here for state volleyball since somewhere in the 1990s."
UD first played host to the girls state championships, then the NCAA Men’s Tournament First Four — which saw a packed crowd for Miami’s tournament game against SMU — before hosting the boys state tournament the following weekend.
“Not too many facilities get to do these two types of events, and kick off the biggest tournament in the country,” DeBolt said. “It’s just a lot of fun.”
The Arena stays essentially the same for all three tournaments, DeBolt said.
“The beauty of it is these kids, both on the girls and boys side, they experience the exact same setup that we use for the First Four — everything from the interview dais to the carpet, everything," DeBolt said. “It’s about as top notch as you get for high school basketball.”
And that’s exactly what the OHSAA aimed to restore.
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