Pacific Life Pac-10 Men’s Basketball Tournament

writing this from a students perspective.
Pros:
— PAC 10 tourney — GREAT teams, great fans.
— Staples Center — Great venue
— one ticket good for all games that session
Cons:
$$$ for crappy seats
No student spirit atmosphere (see below)
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Went to the 2011 semifinals.
— was told that the student section for our school was «sold out»
— Paid $ 35 for «nosebleed» seats (row 6 in 300 section) nearby our student section
— most of the Student Sections were filled by elementary school children, HUNDREDS of them
— HUNDREDS of empty seats below in 100s/​200s section
— although they «reserve» sections for students — — we seemed to be scattered in clumps of 5 throughout the 300s instead of united with other fans
— surrounded by elementary school children
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Obviously the atmosphere of the tournament is exciting, but its hard for students/​fans to go because of ticket prices — how can you have a college basketball tournament where the students from the college can’t even support their teams?

I love college basketball. I love it!
So why do I dislike the Pac-​10 Men’s Basketball Tournament so much? I’m sorry, the Pacific Life Pac-​10 Men’s Basketball Tournament, got to get the sponsor name in there.
The reason I dislike it so much is simple, this isn’t what I love about college basketball. College basketball to me is small gymnasiums, unified student sections, deafening roars from fans and everything — the whole season — hanging in the balance.
The tournament is played in a huge, quarter empty, sterile arena. Good tickets are very expensive, students don’t really get to sit together and do their thing, both teams in the championship game are already guaranteed to be in the tournament and generally it’s less exciting and less interesting than most regular season games.
It’s not the Pac-10’s fault, I guess. They are a big conference and have to play their tournament in a big arena and have to make a ton of money on it. It’s just part of being the Pac-​10.
Although part of the problem is that the tournament has a permanent home in Los Angeles and doesn’t merit much attention even from avid Trojans and Bruins fans. If it changed location from time to time, I think the locals would be more interested and would fill the arena more often even if the home team wasn’t playing. Not to mention it would erase the thought of most non-​LA schools fans that the LA teams have an advantage by playing minutes from the campus every year. Heck, the court is even painted UCLA colors. Hard to understand why other schools think that way.
This year’s final was between the Stanford Cardinal and the UCLA Bruins. The game was fairly entertaining and ended up coming down to a last second shot by Stanford to comeback and tie. But it didn’t fall and UCLA went home with the title. And yet, if you were in the building, if you fell asleep — which is entirely possible if you sit in the dark upper deck — you might not even have known that the hometown team won.
I would hate to see how empty Staples would’ve been if UCLA weren’t playing. At least I had a couple of drunk Bruins next to me keeping my eyes open, even if they were raging idiots.
Oh well, I still love college basketball and I can’t say that I didn’t enjoy the game, I just wish that it was more exciting, the way a championship game should be. Like the Big West Championship in Anaheim later that day, now that’s how it should be done.

Go Cougs!!!
Yes that is all.