Keep the ACC tournament in Greensboro

I saw the greatest basketball game of my life in Greensboro -- UCLA-NC State in 1974 -- and had the most singularly debauched weekend of my college career at the same time.
So you know my vote.

 

N.C. State won the 1974 national championship without having to leave the state of North Carolina for the ACC tournament or the NCAA tournament.

The ACC was played in Greensboro, the Eastern Regionals were played on the Wolfpack's home court, Reynolds Coliseum, and the NCAA finals (it wasn't called the Final Four yet) were in Greensboro. The final with Marquette was quite a letdown after the classic N.C. State semifinal victory over mighty UCLA.

 

Either Richmond or Norfolk would be a great place to occasionally have it, if either place would build a decent arena. If OKC, Little Rock, Omaha, etc. can build nice new coliseums why can't either one of those cities? Hell, Greensboro doesn't have a major tenant for its enormous building, but it does pretty well with the basketball tournaments, concerts and getting Duke/Carolina to play the occasional game there.

They should play the ACC Tournament where ever people will show up, but rotating to keep it fresh and fair is a good idea. Rotate it between Washington, Greensboro/Charlotte and Atlanta and if there proves to be enough interest in Florida or Boston give them a shot too.

 

Lefty won one, in the '80s. I remember because he said he was gonna "mount the trophy on the hood of (his) car and drive around North Carolina."

He also wondered "what J.R. (Reid) thought about it," because, naturally, the Left-Hander came up short in his pursuit of Reid.

 

I think the ACC, like NASCAR, has finally realized there's a national market outside of North Carolina and will go where the biggest bucks are. You may hope all you want, but the days of it being exclusively a Carolina tourney are long gone.

I covered the 1989 tourney at the Omni in Atlanta, which was the third time in five years at that point it had been held outside of North Carolina, and I thought they did a great job with it, but it was 12 more years before it went outside NC again.

At least North Carolina has the Stanley Cup for a couple more months, eh?

 

Doesn't have to be a Carolina tourney exclusively, but to go three years in a row away from the homestead is kinda lame.