March 27-30, 2024 – Boston, Massachusetts
NCAA Sweet Sixteen & Elite Eight
Men’s Basketball
The NCAA did not know of this piece’s publication
Wednesday: All Work, Some Practice
It’s press day. That means that it’s both the busiest and slowest day of the weekend. Why the busiest? Just look at this schedule.
It’s a lot, especially if you’re a national person working on multiple pieces for TV, print, web, whatever. Someone is always moving about on the third floor of TD Garden. It never ends. The interview room is set up so the players and coaches need to walk up three steps to get to the table so they’re looking down at press. The cameras are set up at their eye level. People move in and out constantly.
Even with everything set up to be as professional and showtime as possible, it’s not hard to remember how temporary it all is.
Being a local reporter, UConn was my top target of the weekend. So when locker rooms opened I went over. Of course, I wasn’t alone. It was like a phone booth in so many ways. Luckily I was able to get some time to talk with Solomon Ball. Lovely person.
I was able to kick my feet up on a folding chair by his locker, sit back, and chat. I still don’t know how I did that when the room looked like this.
My apologies to the people who got smudged.
Right after UConn’s open locker room there was the open practice time. Teams get 75 minutes to practice on the game floor and the opening 15 minutes is the time when media can hit the floor to get footage for the newscast, get photos, do a live standup, whatever it may be.
But then once UConn’s activities are closed to press I’m just kind of there. That’s how it goes. The sausage isn’t made with flash but with a slow, mundane hum. I took a walk during UConn’s practice time and you can just hear it. The noise. The silence. The entertainment. The work.
You saw that halfway into the interview room I turned around. I was told by staff I couldn’t film in there. Oops.
For workspace, there are tables and plenty of power wired in. But the work room was incredibly cramped as both writers and photographers had to share the space. Cameras and lenses take more space than laptops and cell phones.
Speaking of eating, let’s talk about the food. I’ve covered numerous D1 NCAA tournaments. I’ve done them here at the Garden, at the Ryan Center at URI, the XL Center in Hartford, Gillette Stadium, and the Paycom Center in Oklahoma City. One of the consistents at all of them was a buffet for media.
Now, sure, you could say why am I making this a problem? Well, there are people there for 8-11 hours a day setting up all sorts of things. TV folks may need to do live hits for newscasts throughout a day. Photographers need time to dial in their remote setups. Writers may need to be in multiple locker rooms or multiple coach availabilities. So being able to grub up and be satiated is important.
In 2018, the buffet at TD Garden for the regional was excellent. Today????
That was it. It was served from 12-2 and no other meals provided all day. The sandwich, turkey with caramelized onions and asiago, was fine. Those Lay’s chips are the single worst chip on the market not named Pringles. The cookie? Excellent. The apple? Didn’t have it.
But, there was also coffee and snacks. The snacks?
The rest of the weekend has meal vouchers so we’ll see how that goes. But this was a slap in the face to the people who spend hours and hours covering the event.
During UConn’s open practice I did a lap of the media table and didn’t see any name cards out yet. So I went up to the ninth floor, which is where overflow basketball media goes as well as all media, print/web/broadcast, goes for hockey. I found my seat right off the elevator, but I decided to pop out the gimbal again and take a walk around the birdsiest birds-eye basketball view in New England.
But things were a lot different from when I covered my first D1 NCAA tournament, the women’s east regional in 2012. Back then I was 20 and looking toward a long future in sports media. Today I’m 32 and starting a career in financial services. Sports is now the hobby, the project of love and passion.
Today really distilled how much I’d grown. In the past this was a tentpole weekend of my year. This was a time where I could prove to myself I belonged at the varsity table. Now I’m not proving anything. I know I belong here, and I’m making a choice to take a more stable career path for my family.
As I got ready to leave the building on Wednesday I was reminded once again how this job can be. Here’s people from around the country getting paid to be at and report on one of the nation’s major entertainment events.
And yet it is quiet. The photographers can’t get this. The TV people can’t find space to do their stand-ups. The writers are quietly hunched over writing about whatever it is that’s on deadline.
A food cart rumbles slowly by the work area. It isn’t loud. It still overshadows the noise in here. It’s work. The fun is tomorrow night. The energy that flows like champagne at New Year’s and glows like a gem in the sun, that’s tomorrow. Today it is work. It is an office. It is mundane.
As I’ve been transitioning full time in a new career I’ve stayed in sports to still be connected to a younger version of myself. Tomorrow will be one of those days. It’ll be one of those days where the sound is what you breathe. Today, though, was just a Wednesday. Nothing more.
Day is over. Here’s a moment with Bella.
Thursday: The Long Night
This is the long, long night of regional weekend. When I cover D3 basketball they rip a doubleheader in 3:30 total. That’s not the case here tonight. Tonight is long and arduous even if it’s a game night. Here in Boston the second game of the doubleheader won’t start until 10:15. I’ll still have an hour drive home after I get to my car.
I got to the building and into the media room. Dinner was being served. At credential pickup on Wednesday we got these meal vouchers. One for Thursday, one for Saturday.
In all my years covering national tournaments I’ve never once gotten a meal voucher so I was curious as to what this would be.
Well…..
Are you fucking serious? That’s all working media get? Doors for media opened at 9 am. There were TV people and photographers getting everything ready for today. And the only time they get to eat is bullshit half-baked concessions from 530-730 at night?
This was some of the most cheap, miserly bullshit the NCAA has pulled. Not the most egregious, we’ll get to that later, but the most miserly by far.
After eating and catching up with some old friends, I hit the floor to see what was going on pregame as the fans being to trickle in. I was able to snap a shot of the TV booth as they were prepping for pregame. As someone who broadcasts himself, both at the D3 level and at low-major D1 schools, I’m used to having a talkback box and a replay monitor for a D1 game. That’s it. Simple. For D3s I’m just flying freelance with a microphone and a broadcast partner.
Yeah…TBS does it a bit differently.
From there I went up to my post on the ninth floor. At every seat, embedded in the countertop, is this high-def screen.
For Celtics games those screens show live stats throughout the game. Neat, will be cool to have them right there. Nope, they were used for showing the press conferences after the first game. Only the press conferences. With no volume. And no subtitles.
I have no idea why.
And speaking of that first game, toward the end of the first half I decided to take a walk all the way from the top of the arena right down to the floor.
Once I was in the media room I went to get a drink from the cooler. As I do, I see the media coordinator walking directly at me. Him and I have butted heads several times over the years and he’s in a top position so I’m expecting something not that fun.
“Hey, listen. Put that thing away. I don’t want [The NCAA] busting your balls.”
Then he just turned around and went back to his post. Felt nice after all these years to get a slight tip of the hat. And I absolutely didn’t do it again. To quote Jim Morrison: “Hey man, we just did the Ed Sullivan Show.”
While I appreciated the coordinator being a real one, he works for the host school and not the NCAA, I have zero empathy at all for the media rules the NCAA pulls out. Back in 2014 I was the producer of a documentary about Boston University wrestling. Knowing that one wrestler had a chance to place, we reached out to the NCAA ahead of the national tournament to ask about licensing footage from the ESPN productions if we needed it.
We knew they would want to be compensated if we used TV images. But not just that…they also wanted us to pay TO LICENSE THE FOOTAGE WE SHOT ON OUR OWN PERSONAL CAMERA EQUIPMENT FOR $3,000 A MINUTE!
So yeah, I have zero fucks to give when it comes to the NCAA’s image rules.
By the time I was on the floor I did get to look up at the crowd of more than 19,000 enjoying the biggest event in the best sports month of the year. And that was pretty neat to me.
From there it was just UConn shoving San Diego State into a locker…
…and stealing their lunch money
Connecticut 82, San Diego State 52. Final. Just an absolute brutal thumping by the Huskies.
On my way to the press conference after the game I stopped at the bathroom for the media on the third floor. My love of symmetry sent me haywire when I saw the sink setup.
There are two sinks. And they’re different?!? Why? Who did that? Everything looked new in there so there was clearly a reason behind this. But what could it be? One motion-sensing sink and one with a handle, albeit a ridiculous handle right on the side of the spout.
A writer, in theory, may have been standing there for a seeming eternity moving his hands up and down and side to side trying to figure out how the fuck to turn the sink on. This wasn’t me. You can’t prove it was me.
Just get one type of sink spout for your damn bathroom. What monster signs off on different faucets in the same bathroom?!?
Any way. Game 2.
That was the money. Illinois couldn’t shake Iowa State in the first half and paid for it later. The game dragged down into a rock fight in the second half as the Cyclones chipped there way back.
The biggest takeaway from me on this long night was just how much more exciting a college game is than an NBA game. A few years back I covered a Celtics-Kings game from almost the identical seat on the ninth floor. It was a dynamite game, with the Celtics pulling out a two-point win late.
The building was just as packed. And yet the crowd was far more excited, engaged, and loud right from tip in both of these games than at any point in that Celtics game. There’s a sparkle in the college game that just isn’t there in the NBA. Maybe it’s only having to play 40 or so games to win a championship rather than 100 or so. I don’t know.
What I do know is that the game is better presented in college. There’s no graphic clamoring to MAKE SOME NOISE or stating DEEE FENSEEEE. There’s no music or other audio piped in during the games. The amassed humanity is the soundtrack, and those pep bands are always a gem.
And the noise really went up as the game progressed. Illinois traveled like crazy.
They got real loud when Dain Dainja went top to bottoms with this slam.
Iowa State kept it within the horizon and the building got more and more juiced the later the game went.
You know it. You saw it. It was close down to the wire up until Terrence Shannon thundered the game to bed.
I stand by my assertion that Iowa State needed a three. They just needed to maintain possession even more.
Illinois 72, Iowa State 69. Final.
Time of both games combined – 4:55:39
Since I was only covering UConn for my assignments, I was able to get out of the building as the crowd spilled out from this one. By that point it was still 12:34 in the morning. It was a walk in the rain back to the parking garage and then fighting through postgame traffic for the hour drive back home. Big shout to my friend Bryce for hopping on a Discord call with me to help keep me awake.
I got into my driveway at 2:06 a.m. I had left more than 10 hours earlier. I was fucking exhausted. I was just thrilled that our game Saturday was starting at 6:09 and not 8:49. That mattered far more than the actual game itself.
Next year Providence hosts during the opening weekend. I’ll just get a ticket for the Saturday doubleheader instead.
I needed one for the long road home on Thursday. And if you know, you know….#BiffRules
Saturday: Party Night
My train rumbled into North Station a little under an hour before opening tip. I was pretty dialed into getting to the building but at the top of the escalator I was met by this ad featuring Julius Randle.
Julius, are you ok? Blink twice if you’re being held against your will.
Anyway, I got into the building nice and easy and took the stairs up to the media room on the third floor because there are few fates worse than waiting for the elevators at TD Garden. And once again it was food voucher time, but there was something different. There was a side choice.
I went with the tenders and the chili mac.
The tenders? Sucked. Awful. The potato wedges? Eh, whatever. The chili mac? Oh my god finally something good this weekend. I’d pay $15-20 for an entree of that at a restaurant. It was so so good. It was heavily spiced but not spicy. Good chili is worth its weight in gold, and this was truly excellent.
I went back upstairs to me seat on the ninth floor to take in the festivities. It was loud. It was exciting. I also wanted to be in the storm and not perched above it. So I gave myself a seat upgrade for the second half.
With UConn up five at the break, there was a stressful energy in the building that can only exist at a game with stakes. And then Connecticut fired up the grill, tossed on some burgers, and invited everyone in blue & white to the party.
The lead kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger. Five became 10 became 15 became change the channel.
I’ve seen thousands of games live across high school and college sports. I’ve never seen a half as dominant as the one UConn played in the final 20 minutes in Boston. This Illinois team was good, legitimately good, and UConn just completely pantsed them for an hour on TBS.
And no one was better than Donovan Clingan. He took the game over and did whatever he wanted on the inside. It was a remarkable performance to watch.
Connecticut 77, Illinois 52. Final.
Time of Game – 2:03
Player of the Game – Donovan Clingan (UConn) – 20 points, 10 rebounds, 5 blocks, 3 steals, 1 assist
After a relatively muted celebration by the the team on the court the postgame festivities got underway. First, a swarm of blue-shirted security staff scurried onto the floor and encircled the three-point line at one end as the ladder was set up for the net cutting. At the same time, a different team scampered out to midcourt to set up the stage that would be used for the regional trophy presentation.
As this is going on, all the UConn fans and students are basking in the victory and having a grand ole time.
From there it was time for the trophy presentation and the confetti. So much confetti.
Still need two more wins to be THE champions, but whatever. It was all about the vibes at this point.
One of the interesting things about the celebration is how disorganized it is. Everything down to the minute all weekend is scheduled and written out. Now, with no more basketball to play, and TV just a few minutes from signing off, it turns into a free for all on the court. Not that that’s a bad thing.
It’s fun seeing the cheer team and the band and family & friends get a chance to celebrate with their loved ones, their school, whatever it may be.
And just like that, the regional is done. The second book in the trilogy of the 2024 NCAA tournament is a wrap and it’s on to Phoenix to finish the story.
Epilogue: Death Theft to the NCAA
The nets were cut and done by 8:45. The second game of the night, Clemson-Alabama was just about to start in Los Angeles. Now it was all about wrapping things up. UConn had their final press conference. I had a story to write for the paper and try to put a bow on this blog.
I had my story in before 10. It was quiet. Already, the deconstruction had begun. Dollies began trickling into the media area. There were chairs to fold up and cameras to de-cable. There were power lines to reel back in and tables to stack and put away.
And there was this damn pop shot game that had been teasing me all weekend. I needed to beat it. At least once.
I went back out onto the floor. Just 90 minutes prior this place was abuzz. It was alive. And now it was nothing. Hell, they had already restrung the damn nets.
The stage where so many people had been basking in the glory just an hour ago was back in pieces. The workers had just arrived. One didn’t even know who won the game.
Writers were filing their stories and starting to file out of the building. The media room was a hive all weekend and now the dominant noises were metal support rails decoupling and folding chairs clapping shut. The feed to the TVs in the back had been pulled and all that was shown was a test pattern. No watching Clemson-Alabama here.
And then there was this one writer. He was so set on writing from his floor seat that the deconstruction happened around him.
The local TV folks from near and far were spreading out, trying to find places to do their standups. Some were taped, some were live. Everyone just wanted to go home.
That’s the thing with these big events. The access is great and being a tiny part of the story of it all is neat, but it’s very much work and extremely tiring. You don’t start the work part of the night until after the game ends. The fans are long gone, many are home, and you’re clocking in. The access only exists because of the content carousel.
This is almost certainly my last D1 NCAA tournament I cover. I’m gonna be a gremlin scurrying about D3 land and loving it. I just don’t want to ever have to come home again due to work at 2 am and miss a night of having dinner with my daughter and putting her to bed.
…
As I said earlier, I have long had a bone to pick with the NCAA and the draconian way they can handle media. So I took a souvenir.
So thanks for the sign. I’m gonna bring to every game going forward, NCAA. You’ll know where I got it. Should have taken better care of your signs. At least you’re not responsible.
My parents voted twice for you, Charlie. Not sorry.
That’s a wrap on Season 5. That was fun. See ya next year. And now, from the Dance, here’s one for the offseason…
Through the Curtain 
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