What Happens in Vegas Stays in Vegas
Updated 11:15 AM PST, Thu, Jun 4, 2009
The prevailing feeling around Mountain West Conference basketball is rage. Everybody's angry, with one notable, twinkling exception, writes 619Sports.Net's Craig Elsten.
Las Vegas has been given the MWC Basketball Tournament until 2013, guaranteeing UNLV home-court advantage in the postseason from here to eternity. In Sin City, they're used to it. It's called the house edge. In other Mountain West cities, the coaches feel like suckers.
By an 8-1 vote, conference coaches were against returning the tournament to the Thomas & Mack Center. The one dissenter, naturally, was UNLV head coach Lon Krueger. Aztecs' coach Steve Fisher said, "it's not fair." He's right. It's not fair at all, and it's a competitive edge, year after year, to one school in the conference.
But in this case, at this time, it might just be the right thing to do. With tourism flagging and the conference afraid of moving to a more-than-half empty arena in Denver, San Diego or Alberquerque, the natural, safe move was to keep the tourney in the one place that will bring the casual fan for a hundred reasons other than their favorite team.
First Published: Jun 4, 2009 10:57 AM PST
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