College Hoops Take Over Las Vegas, But No Fans In Arenas; UNLV Plays Air Force In Mountain West Tourney Wednesday
By Alan Snel of LVSportsBiz.com
It’s creepy quiet on the main concourse here at Thomas & Mack Center in the second week of March.
There’s hand sanitizer and a bored usher in a red blazer.
Not much signs of life along the arena’s concourse that feeds both the upper and lower bowls at the arena on the UNLV campus.
Walk through a portal and you will see the women’s basketball teams for New Mexico and Fresno State staging a competitive and entertaining semifinal game in the Mountain West Conference tournament, with the winners of the men’s and women’s tourneys punching their tickets to March Madness during a COVID-19 pandemic that wiped out last year’s Big Dance.
Las Vegas plays a big role in the national tournament as it hosts five college basketball tournaments that serve as feeders to College Hoops Brackets USA.
College basketball, which derives its pulse from crazy fans, is here in Las Vegas this week. There are just no fans at the games.
While Fresno State’s women pulled away to defeat New Mexico in the women’s MWC semifinal match, just three miles east on Tropicana Avenue the Gonzaga Bulldogs made sure it’s entering the Big Dance undefeated by finally vanquishing a scrappy BYU team, 88-78, at the Orleans Arena.
“It puts us in some incredible company,” Gonzaga coach Mark Few said after his team came back from a double-digit deficit to defeat BYU and is now 26 wins without a loss.
Typically, a West Coast Conference tourney final at Orleans Arena showcases national powerhouse Gonzaga and their rabid Bulldogs fans, who make the annual pilgrimage to Las Vegas from Spokane, Washington.
Not this year, though.
No fans in Orleans Arena because of the novel coronavirus restrictions.
Even college broadcaster Dick Vitale, normally a courtside commentator for ESPN TV broadcasts, was nowhere to be seen.
The Pac-12 is over at T-Mobile Arena, where the hoops tournament was shut down a year ago this week when COVID-19 grounded the sports industry in Las Vegas and across the country.
The Las Vegas sports industry is slowly getting off the mat as fans attended Golden Knights games at T-Mobile Arena and NASCAR events at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
It’s a slow comeback process.
And the Las Vegas sports world is rekindling.
It won’t be all back, however, when the fans are all back.
