Big Sky, Reno Announce Basketball Championships Agreement

[Viktorious]

OGDEN, Utah (April 24, 2015) – The Big Sky Conference and the Reno-Sparks Convention and Visitors Authority announced Friday a three-year agreement that will bring the league’s basketball championships to Reno, Nev.

Starting in 2016, the Big Sky Conference Men’s and Women’s Basketball Championships will be played downtown at the Reno Events Center. The REC was constructed in 2005 and can accommodate roughly 5,000 fans in a basketball configuration.

Big Sky Conference Commissioner Doug Fullerton and Deputy Commissioner Ron Loghry traveled to Reno on Friday for an on-site announcement.

“This was an exhaustive process,’’ said Big Sky Conference Commissioner Doug Fullerton. “Reno, as a city, and the folks that we worked with did a spectacular job in representing their community. We’re extremely excited about going to Reno for our championships. I used to travel to Reno often, and one thing that always impressed me about the community is it’s a lot like the communities we have in the Big Sky. It’s a very similar feel. I know we’re going to be welcomed. The coaches and the fans attending are going to feel very good about coming to Reno.”

All 12 men’s and all 12 women’s teams from the conference will participate in the championship. The dates and tournament format will be announced at a later date.

“It is a great honor for Reno to be chosen as the host city for the Big Sky Conference Men’s and Women’s Basketball Championship for the next three years,” said Reno Tahoe USA President and CEO Christopher Baum. “We’re looking forward to providing a modern, neutral, high capacity playing facility for this prestigious sporting event, and we eagerly anticipate hosting the thousands of athletes, coaches and spectators it will draw through 2018.”

Moving to a predetermined, neutral site for its men’s and women’s basketball championships ends more than two decades of the Big Sky Conference awarding its conference tournament to the regular-season champion. The league has also limited the number of participants in the championship. In 2015, the top eight men’s and women’s teams qualified.

The Big Sky Conference announced in 2014 that it would accept bids from cities interested in hosting the tournaments. Seven communities submitted bids to host either the men’s or women’s tournaments, or both. Five finalists were selected by a committee comprised of a university president, two athletics directors, a senior woman administrator, a faculty athletic representative and an outside consultant. The committee toured each city and venue in February and March, and then forwarded a recommendation to conference administrators and university presidents.

“Our committee looked at a number of different criteria,’’ said Big Sky Deputy Commissioner Ron Loghry, who spearheaded the year-long process. “Finding a neutral home for our championships was one of, if not the most important, pieces of the puzzle. All of the cities we visited did a tremendous job showcasing their cities and venues.

“Our committee is confident Reno provides us the best opportunity to showcase our men’s and women’s basketball programs in a neutral, predetermined setting,’’ Loghry added. “Our student-athletes and coaches will have a great experience, as will our fans, who will be able to enjoy all there is to do in the Reno Tahoe area.’’

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[martymoose]

Sweet. I was a bit concerned when I saw some of the cities that bid for this.

So the plan for the next three years will be:

Thursday: Fly to Reno and watch PSU win
Friday: Watch PSU win
Saturday: Watch PSU win
Sunday: Head over to snowboard in Tahoe, head back and watch Selection Sunday from a sports book in Reno
Monday: Fly home and book travel to regional

 

[BroadwayVik]

It is amazing to me that the big sky conference even considered non-neutral sites. What were they thinking? Those sites included: Missoula, Ogden, Flagsaff, Greeley. This would have been a hallmark of foolishness had they chosen one of those "all-the-goodies-go-to-us" sites. It seems they have up to now encouraged this kind of piggishness to justify simplifying their set of choices.

Bias is (and has been up to now) the sickness of this conference. In good conscience, such policy is unsupportable and can only be rightly opposed.


Bulls make money. Bears make money. Pigs get slaughtered.

The neutral site choices were Reno and, <what?>, Billings-fricking-Montana ?!?. Again with Montana? Are you kidding me?

What a ridiculous choice Billings would have made: More naked bias to Montana and a cold, cold wind-blown venue with a petroleum atmosphere. Yeah, that's the place to be alright, especially with the chill factor. Ooh, baby! Can't wait. Cancel my appointments. I'm going to Billings for the Tourney and ...

... meet some nice folks.




Reno was not only the clear wise choice, it turned out to be the only unbiased choice. What sealed the deal for Reno was that their Events Center construction was recently completed. This is a really nifty win-win for both sides of the three-year agreement. I didn't realize they were in the process of building an Events Center, but it all came together in a timely way and it all now makes sense. And we are relieved of having to approach U Nevada.

...

Kudos to Pounder for his original insight. Now, about this conference being named -- rashly -- after the state of Montana ... There is a much better and more profitable way for the conference to go.

 

[Pounder]

First off... not just newly built. 10 years old. It has hosted the D-League Reno Bighorns since 2008, so it's got basketball playing about in it.

It's been funny to read a couple arguments on other Big Sky boards between a few people who seem focused on the neutral in neutral site and several more whose egos rest on having larger crowds on campus sites. I'm sympathetic to the latter, but if you think the Big Sky would be winning some sort of contest based on the number of people in the arena during a conference tournament, I think you're living 20 years ago. The secret has long been out. Conference tournaments are BS anyway, but since ESPN wants them in every last conference, and they're spending the big bucks to make it so (and the Ivy has bigger bucks), this is what you get. In reality, for the schools, it'll be an improvement simply by saving money on airfare. It'd be a bigger improvement not to have the tournament at all and make the regular season mean something, but this isn't that era. Blame the ACC... who still actually sells tickets for their tournament.

Not to mention that all the campus sites (with Spokane sort of the exception) sort of missed a boat. It was at least obvious to me that you couldn't have the men's and women's tournaments in different places. Only Spokane remotely accounted for that (and remotely at that). Reno owned all the logic here. For now.

But for now, I'm kicking myself. I forgot a suggestion. There's a smaller arena closer to the center of the conference (closer than even Reno... that center would really be either Boise or Twin Falls, though you could make a case for Winnemucca or, oh, the Oregon side of McDermitt at the Nevada border). It has a floor that has hosted regular season professional basketball, it seats maybe 2,000 for basketball, and it promotes a calming sense of dissonance.

The Pendleton Convention Center!

Yeah, they never peeled the old paint off the old Phoenix Suns floor. They even painted their own marks over parts of the floor, so until all these colleges started getting really busy with their floors, this WAS kind of a hot mess. Now it's kind of stoic by comparison.

Oh well. Reno will tend to work for now.