MWC hoops tourneys headed to Denver

Steve Addy

Friday, April 27, 2001 | 9:53 a.m.

When the Mountain West basketball tournament moves to Denver in 2004 and 2005, its absence from Las Vegas will be temporary.

MWC athletic directors voted 7-1 this week to move the men's and women's event from the Thomas & Mack Center to the Pepsi Center those two years. But commissioner Craig Thompson said Las Vegas will remain the favored site before and after that.

The tournament was held here the MWC's first two seasons, and will continue in 2002 and probably 2003, Thompson said. The league has a contract for next year, and is negotiating for 2003 with the Thomas & Mack and Las Vegas Convention and Visitor's Authority.

After Denver takes its two-year turn, pending approval by the MWC presidents on June 3 in San Diego, Thompson said the tournament will likely return to Las Vegas in 2006. He thinks the event should be here roughly seven out of 10 years.

"We're not abandoning Las Vegas in any way, shape or form," Thompson said. "From Day 1, we've felt we should rotate the tournament to different sites, and that's what we're doing.

"But Las Vegas is the No. 1 destination city in the Mountain West. We'll be back at the Mack. Our fans have shown they will travel to Las Vegas, and (the tournament) ought to be there the majority of the time. It makes sense for a lot of reasons."

UNLV cast the lone vote against the move to Denver.

"That's understandable," Thompson said.

But even though the men's tournament last month averaged more than 10,000 fans at the Mack, despite UNLV's absence due to an NCAA postseason ban, Thompson cited several reasons for moving the event. Among them: geography, tournament growth, freshness and neutrality.

Denver is a more central location for fans from other MWC schools, he said. Colorado State (Fort Collins) and Air Force (Colorado Springs) are about an hour's drive from Denver, and Wyoming (Laramie) is less than three hours away.

"You're talking about a couple of tanks of gas, as opposed to airline tickets," Thompson said. "That's a real savings for those teams and their fans."

Though Air Force draws poorly, Thompson hopes having more fans in close proximity will boost attendance and lead to greater profits for the conference and its eight schools. The Pepsi Center, built in 1999, seats 19,309 for basketball.

"Denver is the largest market in the conference, and we would like to cultivate it," Thompson said.

He also hopes a new venue will enliven the event by getting fans out of the routine of another trip to Las Vegas, and to give UNLV fans a rest from having to buy tournament tickets every year.

"We'd like to give the (Las Vegas) community and UNLV's ticket-holders a break," Thompson said. "Why go on their backs every year to support it?

"Plus, when it's there every year, it loses its luster. People can always say, 'We went last year.' Maybe absence will make the heart grow fonder, so to speak."

Neutrality spurred the move to a non-campus site, Thompson said. MWC coaches (and before that, WAC coaches) have complained that UNLV has an unfair advantage with the tournament on its home court. The Rebels won the 1998 WAC tournament and the 2000 MWC tourney at the Mack.

Thompson acknowledged the coaches' concerns, but said a neutral site will only work if fans support the tournament as rabidly in Denver as in Las Vegas.

"We'll find out what the price of neutrality is in 2004," Thompson said. "We're going to have to work hard to sell tickets. You don't want ESPN to flash on and have only 4,000 people there. People from Wyoming, CSU and Air Force will need to come out in good numbers.

"If the tournament (doesn't do well) in Denver, the ADs might say it's worth it (financially) to put it back in Las Vegas."

However, Thompson said the neutrality of this season's tournament -- because of UNLV's absence -- might have actually helped attendance.

"It was truly wide-open. With our (regular season) tri-champions, it was anybody's tournament to win, and we had the automatic (NCAA) bid for the first time," he said. "UNLV's ticket sales were down, but somebody else picked up the slack. Most of it was Wyoming fans."