Wednesday, Dec. 7, 2011: Carrier Dome to bid on state basketball tourney

   Leading off today: The operators of Syracuse University's Carrier Dome will bid to host the NYSPHSAA boys basketball final four beginning in 2014, The Post-Star reported Wednesday.

   Glens Falls has hosted the New York State Public High School Athletic Association event since 1981, not even facing a competing bid for the last two three-year contracts. The Glens Falls Civic Center had also regularly hosted the Federation boys and girls basketball tournaments until Albany made a winning beginning with the 2011 tournament.

   Section 2 Executive Director Doug Kenyon said Section 3 must endorse the Carrier Dome's bid, but that appears to be a certainty. Section 3 announced in May that it was moving its boys and girls postseason tournaments to the Dome.

   "It kind of surprised me," Kenyon said of the Dome's interest. "I know the expenses of these arenas. Plus, it's a multipurpose venue, so they're committing to nine dates over those three years."

   Scheduling could be an issue for the university if the building is being used for high school basketball two of the first three weekends in March. Besides the implications for hosting early-round NCAA basketball tournaments, the Dome is the home to the Orange's nationally ranked lacrosse teams and is in demand for early-season use because of weather considerations.

   The NCAA East Regional men's basketball semifinals and finals have been played in Syracuse six times in the building's 31-year history. The building seats 33,000, and total weekend attendance at the Glens Falls Civic Center has not reached 23,000 for any season in the last decade.

   After hearing bid details in May, basketball chairmen from each of the state's 11 sections will cast a vote and send their recommendation to the state office for approval in August by the Executive Committee. Glens Falls would seem to hold a 6-5 advantage on the basis of travel considerations, but there are many other factors that will come into play.

   Off the top of my head:

   (1) Overall expense. Though the cost of travel -- whether its Jamestown-area teams traveling to Glens Falls or Long Island teams going to Syracuse -- will be a major factor, hotel accommodations, food and incidentals will also be in the mix. The host willing to foot the bill for a larger chunk of expenses -- Rochester was considering assisting Long Island with air fare the last time it submitted a bid -- will be taken very seriously.

   (2) Will anyone else bid? A legitimate bid by Hofstra University or Marist College could siphon off support that Glens Falls would have received. Similarly, a bid from Sections 5 or 6 could have the same effect on Syracuse.

   (3a) What about the girls?

   Officially, the boys and girls basketball committees operate independently. But whether it's on an informal basis between the two groups or at the behest of someone in the state office, people in charge must explore the implications for the girls, who play their NYSPHSAA final fours the same weekend at Hudson Valley Community College in Troy.

   The girls tournament was played for many years at Queensbury High School, a nice facility but nevertheless far inferior to the Glens Falls Civic Center. Aside from avoiding an inevitable fairness concerns, moving to HVCC gave the girls a spacious venue with a layout friendly for both fans and TV/media. It has the look and feel of a facility worthy of a state championship weekend.

   While schools and other agencies have to be watchful of fairness issues (Title IX and otherwise), the media has minimal concerns along those lines. In the current configuration, reporters and photographers routinely commute from Glens Falls to HVCC to cover the local teams. It's slightly inconvenient, yet easy enough to do in most cases.

   If editors are forces to choose how to allocate resources between the boys in Syracuse and the girls in Troy (and remember that newspapers, TV and radio have other pro and college teams that need to be covered, too), time and space devoted to the girls tournament is going to suffer -- especially the first few years when the novelty of the Carrier Dome will be especially high.

   A lot of the gains made by the girls committee in the last decade will be at risk, which would be a shame considering that we're sending a lot of players to ccollege these days.

   (3b) So, let me ask this question: Is anyone at the Dome thinking big? I mean REALLY big.

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   Can you imagine the buzz and the atmosphere if everyone got together and agreed to play the 15 boys games at one end of the Dome floor at the same that the girls games were taking place at the other end of the floor?

   Certainly there would be logistics to work out -- horns and buzzers from the respective scorers tables, etc. -- but the curtain that cuts the Dome floor in half is a good start toward assuring separate game environments.

   Paying the embarrassing $10 to park my car would still be an affront to decency, but $10 for a ticket allowing me to choose from 12 games on Friday or 14 on Saturday might be viable. And Sunday's games might even be played as a quadrupleheader on one court, again worth $10 at the ticket window.

   (4) Does tradition count for anything anymore?

   Glens Falls and basketball in March have become synonymous. It's the one road trip each year that even a curmudgeon like me doesn't mind. Yes, the GFCC is old, but it's not decrepit. And the place has atmosphere and feels like an exciting venue even when there are only 2,500 people in attendance, not to mention a nice tie-in with the annual BCANY hall of fame inductions.

   The tournament committee there is as helpful to media as any high school outfit I work with -- which is saying a lot because I'm consistently spoiled by the respective Section 5 committees throughout the year.

   "We're proud of our tradition," Kenyon told The Post-Star. "We always try to make it a better experience for the kids and the fans every single year."

   Other local papers lavish coverage on the event, and The Post-Star attacks coverage each year with the same vigor you would expect the Augusta, Ga., paper to give The Masters or The Times-Picayune to give a New Orleans Super Bowl. You ain't gonna get that kind of attention from the Central New York print and electronic media while Syracuse is in the NCAA tournament, which it inevitably is.

   In conclusion: I've worked on various committees over the years that have had to decide very difficult issues, and I don't envy the 11 basketball reps who'll have to make the call on Glens Falls vs. Syracuse.

   The debate figures to be complicated and emotional. If Syracuse puts up a well-structured bid (and they have some experience with that), this contest figures to go right down to the buzzer.

   More later: I'll return later Wednesday with the PSAL football championship and a bunch of other notes I've been saving up the last few days.