The ACC Tournament still holds sway in N.C. classrooms

Media reports are saying that the Atlantic Coast Conference is on the brink of playing its marquee event, the men's basketball tournament, at the Barclay's Center in New York, as early as in 2017. It's an inevitability of massive conference expansion that will -- not unlike NASCAR's major boom of the past 20 years -- leave some long-timers feeling passed by while the powers that be hope the move will broaden the event's appeal. (I'm not a NASCAR fan, so I can't speak as to how that actually worked out or not.)

And while this move is likely to rub some Big Four fans the wrong way, take heart: it appears that even today, after years of expansion moves and enlarging the ACC's footprint to the point that it's almost unrecognizable, the good people of North Carolina still give a flip about the ACC tourney.

Case in point: yesterday, my first grader told me that they "studied" the ACC tournament in school.

It made me smile.

"When I was a kid," I said, sounding like the old man I've become, "we actually watched the games in class."

"We did watch it!" she said.

I smiled even larger.

Yes, I know in these days of budget cuts and Common Core and EOGs, watching basketball is probably not the most efficient use of time. But the fact that this is still done, even in some parts of North Carolina, makes me proud. The ACC tourney is a big part of who we are; it's a major part of our identity. Heck, I remember teachers using the tournament as a way to enhance teaching. One teacher -- in the days before Google Maps -- had her students determine how far it was from College Park, Md., to Tallahassee, Fla. (Ah, the old, "new" ACC.) And I may be reaching here, but if for a couple of days each March, some students in some rural N.C. schools actually got interested in the idea of going to college, then what is wrong with that?

Yes, this probably honestly nothing more than nostalgia that warms my heart. But so be it. As my buddy James Curle said over at Riddick & Reynolds a few years ago, "If you're a teacher in one of these pockets who insists on still watching the tournament in class. God bless."

Indeed.

ACC Hall of Champions to open next year

I'm piecing this together, but from what I can tell (from here and here) construction is set to begin soon on the ACC's Hall of Champions in Greensboro.

The building will be more than 8,000 square feet in size and will be a "tribute to the Atlantic Coast Conference, its coaches and athletes."

The facility will be adjacent to the Greensboro Coliseum Complex.

Want ACC tourney tix?

Dane Huffman is reporting that if you want the normally hard-to-get ACC men's basketball tournament tickets, Monday's the day.

The ACC announced Tuesday that tickets for the 2009 ACC Men’s Basketball Tournament will be available for sale on a tournament book basis starting Monday, March 2.

The 56th annual ACC Tournament is scheduled for March 12-15 at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, Ga. The tournament has not had a public sale since 1966, although tickets were available at the gate on the day of games in Tampa in 2007.

“Due to the unique combination of playing this year’s tournament in a dome during very trying economic times, our league has the opportunity to offer a public sale of ACC Tournament tickets," ACC Commissioner John Swofford said in a statement. “Playing in the Georgia Dome provides a great stage for our conference teams and Atlanta has been a terrific partner. Having already sold more tickets to this year’s tournament than the capacity of any of our other venues, our schools felt it would be appropriate to offer the remaining tickets to college basketball fans in the Atlanta area.”

Tickets can be purchased, starting Monday, by contacting Ticketmaster by phone at 404-249-6400 or 1-800-326-4000 or by going to http://www.ticketmaster.com/section/sports.

So there you go.

The unwashed masses may actually be able to buy ACC Tourney tickets

Wow.

For the first time since LBJ was in office, a public sale of ACC men's basketball tickets may actually happen, writes Ken Tysiac.

Karl Hicks, who directs the ACC's men's basketball operations, said the "perfect storm" of holding the tournament in its largest venue during a huge economic downturn has some schools holding unsold tickets.

The tournament is scheduled March 12-15 at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta. The dome has been configured for 36,000 seats – 4,083 fewer than its biggest crowd
in 2001 — in a slightly smaller set-up to help ensure that fans get a good view of the game.

But some schools have been unable to sell their allotment of 2,600 tickets. Hicks said the ACC is redistributing unsold tickets to schools whose demand exceeds the number of tickets they’ve been allotted.

Still, he said, there’s a chance the schools won’t be able to sell all the tickets to their boosters, and that could lead to a public sale of unused tickets. ...

There could be some hesitation among ACC members eager to preserve their boosters’ exclusive control over tickets. But the desire to generate revenue and welcome new fans might trump that hesitation and cause the ACC or the individual schools to sell tickets to the general public.

Never thought in a million years -- even in a down economy -- that this would happen.