No more hoops to jump through: Former UNLV athletic director says it’s time NCAA embraces Las Vegas

By Taylor Bern

Monday, Feb. 15, 2016 | 2 a.m.

While Las Vegas waits for the NHL to give it a chance to be a hockey city and the whisper of an NFL franchise tantalizes the town, basketball remains the top sport in the Entertainment Capital of the World.

That lead is about to get bigger with the inaugural Vegas 16 postseason college basketball tournament, and if the group behind the event gets its way, an NCAA policy change may be coming that would open the door for the women’s basketball Sweet 16 and more in Southern Nevada.

“The time has come,” said former UNLV Athletics Director Jim Livengood.

Livengood is serving as selection committee chairman for the Vegas 16, a new 16-team, single-elimination tournament expected to compete with the three other postseason events on the market: the National Invitation Tournament, the College Basketball Invitational and the CollegeInsider.com Tournament. While the CBI and CIT charge teams to host games on short notice in front of less-than-enthusiastic fans, the Vegas 16, to be played March 26-30 at Mandalay Bay Events Center, has positioned itself as a more lucrative option for programs that want to keep playing.

“We’ve kind of created a bowl game for basketball,” said Brooks Downing, president and CEO of BD Global, a Lexington, Ky., events management firm.

Downing has helped promote basketball events in Las Vegas, such as UNLV’s two appearances at the MGM Grand Garden Arena, as well as working on next season’s game against Duke at T-Mobile Arena. The idea to add a postseason event was borne of a desire to provide what the other tournaments, especially the CBI and CIT, lack: certainty.

Instead of an unknown amount of money being spent to travel wherever the bracket determines only days after selection Sunday, the Vegas 16 gives fans time to plan a trip to a city they might be inclined to visit regardless. And for the teams, it’s a one-time fee of about $50,000 for round-trip flights, ground transportation and lodging, plus the chance to compete in a made-for-TV event that organizers hope can compete with the NIT.

“If you can’t get in the (NCAA) field of 68,” Downing said, “I think it’s pretty attractive for a coach to walk in his locker room and say, ‘Boys, we’re going to Vegas.’ ”

It’s also an easy sell to an athletic director, to the point that Downing and Livengood say they’re receiving almost no pushback from the people who soon will be deciding whether to accept an invitation to the inaugural event. The selection committee — Livengood, Downing, Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Famer George Raveling, college basketball analyst Debbie Antonelli and Boulder City High coach John Balistere — will begin picking teams as soon as the NCAA Tournament field is set.

Not only do they see the Vegas 16 as appealing to the programs, but it also keeps momentum going in town on what’s generally a quiet time between the tournament’s opening weekend and the Final Four.

“It’s kind of a win on all fronts,” Livengood said. “This first year is really important to make sure things go really smooth for the teams, they have a really good experience and Vegas embraces it.”

Assuming all goes well, one committee member has big plans for what could come next. For five years, Antonelli, a college basketball analyst for CBS and ESPN, among others, has been selling an idea of hosting the women’s basketball Sweet 16 in one location. And for five years she’s said that site should be Las Vegas, which currently isn’t allowed to host NCAA-sanctioned postseason events.

“When I first started, of course people mocked me,” Antonelli said.

She doesn’t get much of that anymore. Livengood said the NCAA’s Board of Governors could decide as soon as April to allow Nevada to host sanctioned postseason events, which could open the city to all kinds of opportunities.

But in no sport has that ban seemed more outdated than college basketball, where four conferences — the Pac-12, Mountain West, WAC and West Coast Conference — already stage tournaments here in March. NCAA President Mark Emmert, who had courtside seats for last year’s Pac-12 tournament at MGM Grand, made some comments around Christmas that indicated to Antonelli that she was almost done waiting for her Las Vegas proposal to be reality.

“He said as a membership we have to look at things that are hypocritical, and there is great hypocrisy in Vegas,” she said. “If the Pac-12 presidents voted to move the tournament from (Los Angeles) to Vegas, why would we worry about playing the championships there? To me, the work has already been done. It’s hypocritical for the NCAA to say we’re not going to take any championships there.”

Antonelli said women’s basketball shouldn’t be treated the same as the men’s tournament because it earns much less money, and creating an event like this offers an opportunity to showcase the women’s game.

“The whole concept there is to do something really different for women’s college basketball,” said Livengood, who has worked with Antonelli on the project.

Las Vegas always has room for more events, but whatever sports eventually move in or out of town, basketball will continue to have a prominent place.