The American Athletic Conference decided to hold its men’s basketball tournament in Fort Worth. That was a terrible idea.
Absolutely nobody showed up.
To say that the crowd was sparse for the semifinals on Saturday would be an understatement. You could probably count the amount of people at the game — not including the bands — on two hands.
Not really, but honestly, it was not that far off. UAB and South Florida played in front of no more than 200 people. If that.
The crowd was even worse when SMU played Temple in the final quarterfinal matchup on Friday night.
This empty arena is a result of a severe miscalculation.
There is no reason that the AAC should play its conference tournament at Dickies Arena in Texas. A large number of its members are not located anywhere near the Lone Star State. Especially the ones that are actually competitive in college basketball.
Let’s break it down by distance. Here is how far of a drive it would be from each campus to Dickies Arena:
- UAB — 675 miles
- East Carolina — 1,299 miles
- FAU — 1,305 miles
- Memphis — 494 miles
- Charlotte — 1,066 miles
- North Texas — 39 miles
- Rice — 270 miles
- South Florida — 1,131 miles
- Temple — 1,502 miles
- SMU — 39 miles
- UTSA — 260 miles
- Tulane — 539 miles
- Tulsa — 310 miles
- Wichita State — 363 miles
Distances could be worse. The AAC could have held its tournament in North Dakota or the Pacific Northwest.
But… it’s still not great… Lesson learned!
The American Athletic Conference is trying to stay relevant in the era of conference realignment. It insists that it is important and matters.
And then it turned right around to host its basketball tournament in a city that drew an embarrassingly small turnout. That is not going to help the cause.
If the AAC wants to be taken seriously, there needs to be at few thousand people in the crowd for its semifinal games. Period.