The Elite Eight ends a 6-year run in Springfield, which next year begins a 3-year deal with the Division I MAAC tournament.
Cal Poly Pomona's Kevin Ryan celebrates the Broncos' 2010 NCAA Division II Elite Eight championship at the MassMutual Center in Springfield.SPRINGFIELD – The Elite Eight of men’s college basketball’s Division II are in Springfield this week, bringing with them between $1.2 million and $1.6 million worth of spending on tickets, hotel rooms, meals and other assorted goods and services to the birthplace of their sport, organizers estimate.
The Elite Eight, which begins with educational programs Wednesday morning and the first games at noon in the MassMutual Center, is always one of the busiest times of the year, said Edward J. Grimaldi, owner of Samuel’s Tavern in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame building. The Hall is one of the sponsors of the event, along with American International College and the MassMutal Center.
“We’re right here in the Hall of Fame and everyone seems to make a pilgrimage,” Grimaldi said. “It’s very logical that we would be very busy and we are. It is a great event.”
Bellarmine of Louisville, Ky., plays Midwestern State of Wichita Falls, Texas, at noon. Alabama-Huntsville plays Minnesota State-Mankato at 2:30 p.m. Anderson of South Carolina plays West Liberty University of Wheeling, W. Va., at 6. Bloomfield College of Bloomfield, N.J., plays BYU-Hawaii, at 8:30.
Thursday features semifinals at 6 and at 8: 30 p.m. that will be nationally televised on CBS College Sports. The championship is Saturday at 1 p.m. For more information visit NCAA.com or the MassMutual Center’s website at www.massmutualcenter.com.
The Elite Eight has been in Springfield since 2006.
But the Elite Eight won’t be back next year. Instead, Springfield will host the season-ending men’s and women’s basketball tournament of the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference in March of 2012, 2013 and 2014. The respective winners of the MAAC tournaments will earn a berth in the men’s and women’s Division I “March Madness” tournaments.
Division I is the highest level of competition in college sports. MAAC schools are all within about a six-hour drive and include Siena College, which is located north of Albany, N.Y., and Fairfield University in Connecticut.
The MAAC also means more than twice the economic impact of the Elite Eight, said William E. Hess Jr., general manager of the Springfield Marriott and part of the local organizing committee for the Division II Elite Eight. The MAAC is both a men’s and women’s tournament, so that means the 10-team league will send 20 teams to Springfield next spring.
Each basketball team gets about 20 hotel rooms just for the players, coaches, trainers and administrative staff, Hess said.
He didn’t know if his committee will be involved in the MAAC event starting in 2012. The focus has been on this week and the Elite Eight.
“We were committed to making this event the best we could possibly make it,” Hess said.
Among the new attractions this year is a 5K run and 1-K walk Saturday, sponsored by Human Resources Unlimited, a Springfield-based organization that connects people living with disabilities to work opportunities.
Another basketball tournament, the Basketball Hall of Fame Tip-Off Classic that is held at the beginning of the season in the fall, will move from Springfield to the Mohegan Sun Arena in Uncasville, Conn., in November.