Summit League Tournament

Mon Mar 07, 2016 1:57 pm

For those interested in what the rest of the Summit League is doing in the tournament, tonight #1 IPFW takes on #5 NDSU, also #2 SDSU plays #6 Denver. Winners play tomorrow night for the conference tournament championship.

ibleedpurpleandgold · Mon Mar 07, 2016 11:29 pm

Very frustrating SDSU should have lost both games in the tourney hopefully NDSU can pull it off tomorrow.

vatusay · Tue Mar 08, 2016 8:11 am

Imagine that, a NDSU and SDSU final.

Really don't like the tourney set-up.

wiu712 · Tue Mar 08, 2016 8:39 am

Both IPFW and Denver lost big leads in the Men's semi-finals.

The two South Dakota teams do enjoy an advantage due to their close proximity to Sioux Falls.

ibleedpurpleandgold · Tue Mar 08, 2016 8:40 am

vatusay wrote:Imagine that, a NDSU and SDSU final.

Really don't like the tourney set-up.

I saw all are home games except omaha and ORU i personally that SDSU was the best team i saw they had to really good big's and 4 really good guards and NDSU runs a similar style as what mo use to run not the most entertaining thing to watch but effective.

sealhall74 · Tue Mar 08, 2016 9:15 am

Lots of things to like about this tournament. Smaller city, no traffic/transportation hassles. The locals, young and old, are very passionate about basketball and their favorite schools. I think I saw the "Road Warrior" (has not missed a Bison football game home or away in Lord knows how many years) sitting row 2 behind Bison bench. Only non-Dakota team to bring anything close to what I would call a respectable student fan turnout was Omaha and it was only about 25 or so. USD and SDSU will probably bring in at least 8K for a Tuesday PM women's championship game. This tournament is not changing anything anytime soon. And the most amazing thing I have learned during my stay here this week is that South Dakota has zero state income tax, personal or corporate. Could that be the real reason Bob headed here? LOL

Tue Mar 08, 2016 11:18 am

As mentioned, NDSU and SDSU won their games last night, setting up a Bison vs Jackrabbits final tonight at 8 PM on ESPN2 and WatchESPN.com

Don't know how much of it is just that their basketball teams are decent as opposed to the location being somewhat of a "home field advantage" (probably some of both), but since the tournament moved to Sioux Falls, 5 of the 7 tournament championships have been taken by either NDSU or SDSU (and this year will make it 6 out of 8). Also, this is the 3rd time in 4 years that the championship game has been NDSU vs SDSU.

Also, on the women's side (again, the 8th year of the tournament in Sioux Falls), SDSU has played (including this year) in 7 out of the 8 tournaments, winning 6 so far. USD has been in the last three championship games, winning the only one that SDSU hasn't won, and will be in it again this year, since it's another all-SD (USD vs SDSU) championship game, just like 2 of the last 3 years.

wiu712 · Tue Mar 08, 2016 11:43 am

I think that the Summit League is locked into Sioux Falls through 2020. Based on the above data from Scott, there seems to be an advantage for the two South Dakota programs.

There is no question that the games have had bigger crowds since moving to Sioux Falls. One of the Saturday sessions set a record crowd (over 10,000).

This year's Men's quarter-finals had #1 IPFW playing #8 South Dakota. This meant that the #8 seed had the crowd advantage over the #1 seed.

vatusay · Tue Mar 08, 2016 1:34 pm

^that is the biggest gripe I have. Would be nice if first round games, at least, were payed on the higher seed teams home court.

Tue Mar 08, 2016 2:08 pm

vatusay wrote:^that is the biggest gripe I have. Would be nice if first round games, at least, were payed on the higher seed teams home court.

I think the conference tournament used to do this years ago (like...20+ years ago). Looks like they did that back in '84-'85 with first round games being at the higher seed's court, then the second and final rounds at Springfield, MO.

On the men's side, this year that would have resulted in:
#8 USD at #1 IPFW
#5 NDSU at #4 IUPUI
#7 ORU at #2 SDSU
#6 DU at #3 UNO

If South Dakota has to go on the road the play Fort Wayne and NDSU goes to IUPUI to play, it's entirely possible that they don't win those games since they don't have a few thousand of their own fans in the arena.
It would end up being a bit higher travel costs for USD and NDSU, but less for IPFW and IUPUI.

Depending on how inclined you are to don a chapeau constructed of a thin metal substance, the decision to keep the tournament in Sioux Falls could be both influenced by the proximity of the Dakota schools and the ability of those schools to bring large numbers of fans. Because of this, the conference may be more inclined to keep all of the tournament games in Sioux Falls, so as to improve the likelihood that the later round games include at least one (and often two) fairly "local" teams. You can't argue that Sioux Falls hasn't put forth a very strong argument to keep the tournament for the foreseeable future...they do a great job with it, have a really nice facility (I've heard...haven't been there myself), and basketball is a pretty big deal in South Dakota, but you kinda have to wonder if the conference wants to try to have local teams in the later rounds, primarily so they can have better attendance, and if that's at all influenced their decision to keep the tournament there.