Ohio State AD Backing Dayton As Opening Round Site, But Does It Make Sense?

As I’ve learned more about Ohio State AD Gene Smith’s (pictured) stance on the NCAA Tournament, I’ve found myself in agreement with many of his thoughts. Smith heads up the NCAA Tournament committee, too, so his opinion matters.↵↵The NCAA men’s basketball committee has a two-day meeting beginning today and according to the Dayton Daily News, Smith is pushing for Dayton to remain as the site for the opening round games.↵

↵↵⇥ “I’ve tried to be clear-minded about the different formats, as opposed to having preset thoughts,” said Smith, who will finish out his five-year term on the selection committee as chairman for 2010-11. “I do know we have to pay a lot of attention relative to location to Dayton.↵⇥↵⇥“Dayton has been unbelievable with the opening-round game and how they’ve responded to that. I do know I’ll be asking, ‘How does this affect Dayton?’ and push that we pay attention to the job done by Dayton.”↵⇥

↵⇥↵⇥[...]↵⇥

↵⇥↵⇥UD Athletic Director Tim Wabler has informed the NCAA that the school would be interested in hosting as many as four opening-round games and could make UD Arena available on Tuesday and Wednesday of the first week of the tourney.↵⇥

↵↵↵As I said, I agree with much of what Smith says -- for example, he sounds like he’s against the idea of using the final at-large teams in the opening round games in the story -- but the logistical obstacles make it seem like it’s time to move away from Dayton. I went into some depth about this back when the 68-team tournament got the OK and you can read those thoughts here. In short, the proposition of playing two games on Tuesday and two games on Wednesday will make that ultra-slim chance of a No. 16 upsetting a No. 1 almost vanish entirely. ↵

↵↵The travel alone for a team would be ridiculous. This season, Arkansas-Pine Bluff played on Tuesday, March 16 in the play-in game and then didn’t play again until Friday, March 19. Now teams would be tasked with playing on, say, Tuesday and then turning around and playing Thursday. You lose a travel day and have to travel for the second time in a week. It’s not practical from a financial standpoint and it seems like undue stress when it comes to travel. We won’t have any firm answers until June 28 when the committee gets together for a four-day conference.↵

↵