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By Alan Snel, LVSportsBiz.com Publisher/Writer
Emotions run deep in the Madness.
UC Santa Barbara’s Ajay Mitchell sobbed in the arms of his Gauchos coach, Joe Pasternack, at center court in The Dollar Loan Center arena in Henderson.
Mitchell’s team just beat Cal State Fullerton, 72-62, leaning on Mitchell’s 20 points to win the Big West Conference tournament championship Saturday night and punch its ticket to NCAA’s Big Dance.
There were tears of victory. And tears in defeat all week long in Las Vegas.
Gonzaga, as usual, won the West Coast Conference title at Orleans Arena Tuesday. San Diego State grinded down Utah State to win the Mountain West crown at Thomas & Mack Center earlier Saturday.
Bill Walton held court at T-Mobile Arena where his UCLA Bruins lost a close one to Arizona, 61-59, in the Pac-12 title tonight.
Meanwhile, Todd Simon’s Southern Utah team lost to Grand Canyon, 84-66, in the WAC final at Orleans Arena Saturday night. Simon was the interim coach of UNLV’s men’s basketball team in 2016 after Dave Rice was fired.
And UNLV’s women hoopsters will find out their foe in the first round of the NCAA tournament Sunday after the Lady Rebels won their 31st game of the season on Wednesday, a Big Dance berth-clinching win over Wyoming thanks to the roundball exploits of tournament MVP Desi-Rae Young.
Before UC Santa Barbara punched its ticket to the NCAA tournament Saturday, the women of the Hawaii Rainbows made their presence known at the same arena.
The Hawaii women hoopsters staged a remarkable fourth quarter comeback against UC Santa Barbara women right after the Rainbows’ sizeable pep band played the Hawaii 5-0 TV theme song to energize the women.
Several hundred Hawaii students in dark green tennis shirts were singing, dancing and screaming after the Rainbow women pulled out a win in the final seconds to win the Big West Conference title and a spot in the Big Dance.
The Santa Barbara men defeated Fullerton at The DLC, the 6,000-fan arena that’s home Bill Foley’s Henderson Silver Knights minor league hockey team and Vegas Knight Hawks Indoor Football league team. The NBA G League Ignite also play minor league basketball in this gym.
The Rainbows’ spirit and Mitchell’s tears of victory were the just the latest elements of March Madness, which had Las Vegas in a vise this week.
Las Vegas Events and public tourism agency LVCVA look at March Madness in Las Vegas as a chance to sell Las Vegas to fans who come from places that range from San Diego, Spokane and Boise to Fort Collins, San Francisco and Seattle.
Las Vegas Events spent $500,000 in sponsorship money on the Pac-12 tourney and $300,000 each to both the West Coast Conference and the Mountain West Conference.
They hope that $1.1 million in sponsorship dollars pays off in basketball fans who visited Las Vegas for tourneys this week returning to spend tourism dollars on hotel rooms, meals and merchandise.
Hotel room buys mean hotel room tax revenues to help pay off Southern Nevada’s debt on helping build the Raiders’ NFL stadium and retail sales mean sales tax revenues.