CHAPEL HILL – Sources close to the Atlantic Coast Conference and the Barclays Center in Brooklyn say the two parties have agreed to stage a future ACC Basketball Tournament at the brand new home of the Brooklyn Nets.
The ACC will vote on holding the tournament in New York Tuesday, but the sources say that the agreement has been made and the vote is a mere formality. Due to the addition of former Big East schools Notre Dame, Louisville, Pittsburgh and Syracuse, the ACC is anxious to play a tournament in the northeast.
The Barclays Center selected the ACC over the Big Ten, which has added Maryland and Rutgers to its conference membership. Both conferences may hold later tournaments in Brooklyn, but the ACC will come first.
The exact year the ACC Tournament will be played in Brooklyn has not been determined, but it will be at the Barclays Center and not Madison Square Garden. The 2014 and 2015 ACC Tournaments will be played in Greensboro. The 2016 Atlantic Coast Conference Basketball Tournament will be held at Washington, D.C.’s Verizon Center, the ACC announced November 14.
The 2017-21 tournament sites have not been determined, but one of those years it will be New York and the Barclays Center.
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Went to Brooklyn by subway during my time at the last BET in March. Didn't stop at the Barclay's Center (actually went to Spumoni Gardens) but noted it was right off the subway and relatively easy to get to.
I don't know what the neighborhood around it is like it but from what I have seen and heard, Brooklyn has a lot of interesting places worth visiting and I would look forward to attending an ACC tournament there.
Haven't been in the Barclay's either but if it is anything like all the other newer arenas I have been in, it will have a wide open concourse, be very easy to get around and the seats will be much closer to the court.
MSG addressed some of the warts that detracted from the MSG experience with the recent renovation (the lobby is finally somewhat decent, it is a little easier to walk around now and the new open areas behind the concourses were desperately needed). Still, it feels constricted, tight, and out of date compared to newer arenas. I still dislike the seating design greatly. The seats are way too far from the court, the angles for the seats are way too flat and there is no sense of intimacy unless you have Spike Lee type tickets.
But with all that, more than anywhere, New York is Manhattan. There is still magic in the arena, the bars around it are awesome and the walk up to the theatre district after a Syracuse win after midnight remains a wonderful treat.
That arena, that city deserve the best conference championship featuring the best teams. No offense to the New Big East, which is a good conference, but it should not be the featured show on Broadway in early March. Neither by the end is the B1G, which, while better than the NBE, is already clearly behind the ACC and that gap just increases when the ACC is saddled with the RU and UMd programs and the ACC upgrades from UMd to UL.
It is going to be really interesting to see how the NBE does with their tournament this spring. Right now they have one team in the Top 25, with no other schools even receiving a single vote. They have played poorly in their OOC games and might well have no Top 25 teams by the time their tournament begins. Will they draw good crowds to see that level of product? I can't imagine they will but perhaps I am mistaken. We will find out soon enough.
