Poor Attendance

[irs]

Following was in the Detroit Free Press:

Link: http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/arti ... FkNdN7Y%3D

Breslin: A hostess with the mostest
Rave reviews as the state at last holds women's games
March 22, 2007

BY MICK MCCABE

EAST LANSING -- The last time the state hosted a postseason women's basketball tournament, Nancy Lieberman was a senior at Old Dominion and her team won the national championship with a 68-53 victory over Tennessee, which was coached by a young whippersnapper named Pat Head.

The year was 1980. The Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women was running the show -- the NCAA had yet to get involved with women's athletics. And Central Michigan hosted the final four before it became the Final Four.

This time it was Michigan State. Its Breslin Center hosted the first two rounds of the Greensboro Regional, and everything went about as well as MSU and NCAA officials could have hoped, as long as you don't mention MSU's loss to Rutgers on Tuesday night.

"Things went very well," said Jane Meyer, a member of the NCAA's basketball committee and a senior associate athletic director at Iowa, who was in East Lansing to observe and advise.

"The biggest thing is Michigan State's administration really got behind this, and they got the community involved. Our purpose is to make this as exciting an event for our student-athletes as possible, and I think Michigan State did that."

Making the event memorable were some outstanding crowds. Sunday's doubleheader sessions drew 6,504 and 6,780 fans. Tuesday's doubleheader attracted 8,056 fans, and the total attendance of 21,340 was the highest of any of the eight tournament sites.

"The bottom line is we really want to thank the community and our fans for supporting this," said MSU senior associate athletic director Shelley Applebaum, the administrator in charge of the regional. "We were getting kudos left and right. ... People around here really stepped up and really supported this."

Also at the event was Scottie Rodgers, the senior director for university relations for CSTV Online Inc. Before that job, Rodgers was the NCAA's associate director for the women's basketball championship and oversaw media relations.

"From an operations standpoint to the game management to the media standpoint, Michigan State did a great job bringing in the right people and having the right people involved," Rodgers said. "I think the teams have had a pleasurable experience. The whole goal of a championship like this is to make the experience as easy as possible for the teams."

Rodgers said he expected MSU to be added to the rotation that hosted first- and second-round games, if MSU chose to host again.

"I think they're going to get a positive grade overall," he said. "With that and with their geographic fit, if they put their name in the mix, they're going to get first and second rounds and maybe a regional moving forward.

"Now the community has seen the impact of hosting this, I think what's going to happen is they'll have something to relate to, and when they go out in the community next time, they'll probably get more support than they got this time, and they got great support this time."

Hosting a regional -- third- and fourth-round games -- is unlikely because such games have to be at neutral sites, and one of the main reasons to host is to help your team's chances to advance in the tournament.

Who knows, maybe this was just the beginning of a series of hosting efforts for MSU.

"We're glad that we pulled it off," Applebaum said. "If there are future openings and if we have a team that can compete, then this is something we'd look at doing again."

Either way, we probably won't have to wait a quarter of a century to see a women's tournament basketball in Michigan again.

By the way, anybody know whatever happened to that young coach at Tennessee?

[TG1996]

I think if MSU is to host another one, they better make sure BG is in it to make it a success.

They couldn't even get Shelley Applebaum to drop some BG love?? Hmmm...

[pdt1081]

I think if MSU is to host another one, they better make sure BG is in it to make it a success.

They couldn't even get Shelley Applebaum to drop some BG love?? Hmmm...

Without BG in it, the attendance could easily have dropped them to fourth instead of first...but MSU probably doesn't want to say that BG had almost as many fans as they did. Not to mention louder fans as well.