Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, March 20, 1992 TAG: 9203200297
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JACK BOGACZYK SPORTS COLUMNIST
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
When the NCAA Tournament brackets were announced Sunday, there was trouble in Cincinnati.
Cincinnati and Indiana basketball fans who had gobbled up tickets for the NCAA Southeast Region first- and second-round games at Riverfront Coliseum suddenly wanted seats elsewhere.
The Bearcats, who play their home games on campus at Shoemaker Center, thought they'd be playing at their old home. Instead, they were seeded fourth in the Midwest Region and sent 50 miles up I-75 to Dayton.
The Hoosiers blew the No. 1 Southeast seed and a Cincinnati trip by losing at Purdue on Sunday. Indiana was sent West to Boise, Idaho, as a No. 2 seed.
Ohio State got the top Cincy seed, but their fans had gambled and bought up Dayton tickets. Miami of Ohio, the Mid-American Conference champ, gave Cincinnati another "home" team.
Classified advertising sales for ticket swaps have been brisk in Cincinnati and Dayton newspapers this week, and Ohio State fans joined the scalpers milling outside Riverfront before Thursday's opening session.
A two-day, three-session Cincinnati ticket cost $75. The same in Dayton had a face value of $60. Dayton was the first of the eight NCAA sites to sell out, in early December. All of Riverfront's public tickets, more than 14,000, were gone by late January.
UC fans hopeful of watching the Bearcats in Dayton today haven't fared well in prying loose some of the 11,000 seats that were sold publicly. It seems that Kansas' very supportive fans, more accustomed to NCAA visits than UC followers, have been offering Dayton scalpers bigger bucks.
Those sales are the reason the NCAA continues to return to these sites. Location helps, too. Among area schools, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisville, Cincinnati, Ohio State, Miami of Ohio and Xavier have been NCAA visitors perennially or recently, and each of those campuses is located within a two-hour drive of the Cincinnati-Dayton corridor.
\ Mike Williams, the Miami of Ohio senior forward and VMI transfer, was sporting a Michael Jordan look for the Redskins' game with Jordan's alma mater Thursday.
Williams, who wears uniform No. 23, had his head shaved. Williams didn't play like Jordan against North Carolina, however, with nine points and five rebounds in Miami's 68-63 loss.
A Miami spokesman said Williams has been shaving his head for all big games this season.
\ With an 80-75 loss to Alabama on Thursday at Riverfront, the stellar college career of Stanford forward Adam Keefe ended with a 23-point, 9-rebound afternoon. The 6-foot-9 Keefe is expected to be a lottery pick in the NBA draft.
Memo: longer version ran in the New River Valley edition