A little over 5 months ago I bought my ticket and made my hotel reservation for the First and Second Rounds of the 2025 NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament. Now, here we are in March. The regular season and conference tournaments are over, and Selection Sunday is here and I will find out who will be joining me at the Lenovo Center in Raleigh, North Carolina.
Now, going into Selection Sunday, I knew that one of the
teams that would be coming to the Raleigh Venue would be the Duke Blue
Devils. Duke is both the Regular Season
and ACC Tournament Champions. So, it is almost certain that Duke will be a #1
Seed in Raleigh.
As the bracket was revealed to say that I was shocked to see
that Not only Duke would be coming to Raleigh as a #1 seed, but we would also
be getting Florida as a #1 Seed. This sucked because there would be two 1-16
games in Raleigh which almost always results in a route, unless you are
Virginia or Purdue.
This also mean that we would be getting two 8-9 matchups
with will probably be the only chance we have at a good game in the first round.
The chairman of this years selection committee was Bubba Cunningham who is the
athletic direction at the University of North Carolina. Which also explains why
a mediocre North Carolina Team made the tournament over several more deserving
teams.
As I looked over the complete 68-team bracket, I have to say
that some of the seedings were questionable too. Louisville was an 8 seed while
I thought that they probably should have been on the 5 or 6 line. North Carolina was an 11 seed and would be
playing in the Play in games in Dayton. In
my opinion, they should not have been in the field of 68 under any
circumstances. Vanderbilt was a 10 seed
and I had them coming in on the 7 line.
But again my biggest complaint was two #1 seeds were sent to
Raleigh. I have been attending the
Tournament since 2001, and I can’t remember the committee send two #1 seeds to
the same site. I would be curious about why that happened this year.
Here are my first round matchups in Raleigh:
#1 Duke vs #16 Mount St. Mary’s #8 Mississippi
State vs #9 Baylor
#1 Florida vs #16Norfolk Sate #8 UCONN
vs #9 Oklahoma
To say I am disappointed would be an understatement. For a
brief minute I even considered selling my Ticket on one of the secondary ticket
sites. But, that was only a brief thought and on Thursday, March 20 I headed
out on what I hoped to be a little over 3-hour drive. But every time I have
been in the Triangle Area of Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill I have hit some
heavy traffic. According to Google Maps there are some large areas of
Construction all along my route.
On Thursday the drive down was largely uneventful until I
got about 5-miles from my Hotel. That last 5-miles ended up taking almost 45
minutes due to heavy traffic and construction.
The Holiday Inn in Cary is located near the Crossroads
Shopping center and there were several place to eat nearby. But because traffic
on the main highways was still heavy I opted to have dinner at the Olive Garden
less than a half a mile away.
After supper, I camped out in my hotel room and watched the
evening games of the Tournament. There were a few good games, but it seems to
me like there were more crap games than usual on the first day of the
tournament.
I was up about 8 a.m. and went down to see if the pancake
roller was working and enjoy a nice breakfast before heading out to the games.
But I was in for a couple of surprises. Not only did this hotel not have a
pancake machine, but they also charged $13 for breakfast that is traditionally
free at other hotels.
One of the reasons I like coming to Raleigh for the
tournament is that there is paid on site parking for around 10,000 cars. In my
two previous visits it has been easy in and easy out and they only charge $20.
But whoever owns the arena is really sticking it to those
attending events here. But this was just the first of several shocks I was in
for once I was inside the arena. A bottle of soda (no cup, no ice) was $7.47. I
saw one beer (I don’t drink) listed at $17. And a three-piece chicken strip
with fries and a bottled drink set me back more than $27.
It’s amazing that they are gouging people to the extent they
are. In the future I will have to think twice before returning for future
tournaments.
We were the first game of the day and had CBS #1 broadcast
crew of Ian Eagle, Bill Raftery and Tracy Wolfson. The first game of the day
tipped at 12:09 and featured Baylor against Mississippi State.
As usual they clear the arena between the afternoon and
evening sessions. The arena staff did an excellent job cleaning and getting the
place ready. Unlike some arena’s the staff did a quick turn around and about
45-minutes later the doors opened, and we were readmitted for the evening
session.
For the most part this was a competitive game. I am not a
Dan Hurley Fan. I don’t like all of his sideline antics, and I really don’t
like the way that he rides the officials.
I was really hoping the Oklahoma would send them packing. But it wasn’t
to be as UCONN defeated the Sooner’s 67-59.
The days games went about like I expected when I first saw
the bracket last Sunday Night. Two crappy 1 vs 16 games and two relatively
close 8 vs 9 game. Like I said before, the tournament committee didn’t do the
Raleigh venue any favors by putting two #1 seeds here.
But maybe we will have two competitive games on Sunday. Tomorrow
is an off day here in Raleigh, so I plan on using it to do a little sightseeing.
