The ACC tournament is over. Held in Tampa at the St. Pete Times Forum, the event is considered a success by many local boosters. Of course, some basketball fans want it in Greensboro every year. ESPN’s Bomani Jones:
Greensboro offers more of a backyard barbecue atmosphere, a cordial and communal affair. What we’ve got here in Tampa is a cocktail party, something really pretty but not quite comfortable.
HA! There’s more. Check out Triangle TV station WRAL:
… something is lost when a place, an experience, a situation, an event we love is reduced to an anonymous commodity divorced from its setting. Too few traditions endure in our fluid society, particularly in the fast-growing Southeast.
The headline from Greensboro News-Record reads Come Home, ACC!, but I hear WAAAAH!
a city with a rich college hoops heritage that dates all the way back to Thursday afternoon’s opening round of the tournament.
South Carolina’s The State.com:
It is not that Tampa is a bad city, it is just a bad city for the ACC tournament. The tournament attracted little interest outside the St. Pete Times Forum, a perfectly suitable arena if it were located in North Carolina. The morning after an exciting first round in which four lower seeds advanced, the discussion on one sports talk radio station centered on what the Tampa Bay Buccaneers needed to do with their defensive line. Come on.
Back to ESPN Page 2:
Jeff Cameron, who hosts a popular sports talk show in Tallahassee, is a Tampa native. He thinks there’s interest, but he doesn’t believe this event is up Tampa’s alley.
“I’ll be honest with you,” said Cameron, the talk show host. “[Interest in the tournament] is more of a reason for this city to party than it is passion for basketball.”
There is always a great variety of things to do here. Plus, you just can’t beat the weather this time of year. Who wants to stay inside when the sun is shining, there’s a nice breeze, and everyone is friendly.
I guess we should apologize for having choices.
Tell ya what. You guys bring your tournament back to Tampa, and next time any of us locals don’t want to do anything, we’ll just take a trip to Greensboro.
By the way, according to the handful of people that actually went to the games instead of the beach, or Ybor, or another of our millions of choices, UNC was the tournament winner. We here in the Sticks offer a hearty congratulations to the University of North Carolina Tarheels, your champion of the 2007 ACC Tournament.
dcdave
3 years ago
Those peeps aren’t whining Tommy. I was at almost every single game, and in the area before and after. Tampa is not a fit for the ACC tournament. A lot of people here weren’t even aware, and this is definitely not a basketball town. It’s not the atmosphere so much as the lack of interest locally. Greensboro is a smaller town, but when you’re there during the ACC tournament, there’s electricity in the air and EVERYBODY wants to be there.
My wife and I were surprised at the sheer amount of tickets being sold. It’s partly natural, seeing as the losing fans want to get rid of their tix, but normally they’re snapped up in about 10 seconds.
Having talked to many a Clemson, NC State, Duke and Maryland fan, I got one distinct impression: the ACC won’t be back in Tampa.
csc
3 years ago
Or could it maybe be that the peeps down here are not ACC fans……
Anonymous
3 years ago
“The morning after an exciting first round in which four lower seeds advanced, the discussion on one sports talk radio station centered on what the Tampa Bay Buccaneers needed to do with their defensive line. Come on.”
Outside of FSU, the interest in the ACC around here is pretty slim. The Tampa area is heavily UF or FSU. Not so much UM. So once the Noles were bounced, who cared? And even with their win, how long can you talk about that?
ski
3 years ago
the ACC traditionalists are always going to whine when ever their tournament is outside North Carolina, but I didn’t hear any of the ACC beat guys for the DC area press complain about heading down to Tampa for a week in winter. that being written if Tampa had hosted the ACC football championship game this weekend we would have seen a larger response.
PortTampa
3 years ago
I wonder what the ACC tournament atmosphere, or lack thereof, portends for the Women’s Final Four next year. Went to Boston last year and the walkability and mass transit options far made up for any early April weather issues.
tommy
3 years ago
The ACC has gotten used to being the only game in town up there. Maybe they should HAVE to spend a couple bucks on advertising…
Lee
3 years ago
Hockey Playoffs are almost here!
dcdave
3 years ago
I’m not knocking Tampa or anything. I live here by choice, remember? This just isn’t a basketball town, and there are no ACC fans, so why have it here? I’m grateful, because I’d have missed the darned thing, but we’re in SEC country here. If you held the SEC tournament in Carolina, I’m sure there would be a dearth of excitement as well.