New Mexico beat San Diego State on Saturday in the Mountain West Conference tournament final at Las Vegas' Thomas & Mack Center "in front of another pro-Lobo crowd of 13,789," according to Geoff Grammer of the ALBUQUERQUE JOURNAL (3/16). In Las Vegas, Alan Snel reported UNLV and MWC officials tried to "create a 'neutral' venue" at Thomas & Mack Center for the event. MWC Senior Associate Commissioner Dan Butterly said that "many steps were taken to change Thomas & Mack's look and convert the venue into a neutral site." Snel noted MWC banners and logo wrap were "everywhere, covering tunnel walls, hallways, stairs and even UNLV player posters," and there was not a UNLV logo "to be seen near the court." Butterly said that the scoreboard operator was the "only Las Vegas-based employee courtside," and that five large banners in front of the arena that usually show UNLV themes were "replaced with Mountain West-branded logos, with the Mountain West logo also on the front exterior." Several coaches in past years had "chirped about UNLV gaining an unfair tournament advantage by playing on its home court" (LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL, 3/15).
MISSING OUT ON THE BIG DANCE: The MWC once again joined the Pac-12, WAC and West Coast Conference in holding its postseason tournament in Las Vegas, and in N.Y., John Branch wrote there is "no spectacle like it on the college basketball landscape." However, the city is "one major college basketball participant with no chance of advancing to the national tournament," as the NCAA Tournament "keeps out of Las Vegas." The NCAA is "unwilling to conduct its championships in a state, like Nevada, with legalized sports gambling." The contrasting viewpoints of conference officials and NCAA officials "creates a strange, hard-to-understand delineation for fans, coaches and even conference administrators: Las Vegas is a perfect fit for college basketball one week but is off limits the next." Pac-12 Commissioner Larry Scott said, "It's like a state rule versus a federal rule." WAC Commissioner Jeff Hurd: "I don’t know if the philosophy will change, but the NCAA has a lot of new faces. They bring more of a business background to the game than maybe previously. And there’s probably some arguments to be made that Las Vegas would be a good place to hold games." Branch noted Las Vegas, even without NCAA tournament games, "already attracts huge crowds for the tournament's first full weekend." Las Vegas Events President Pat Christenson: "We don’t really need any help that weekend. We’d be more interested in the second weekend, the Sweet 16. That said, we would love, and have been trying, to have conversations with the NCAA about the postseason, period" (N.Y. TIMES, 3/15).
