Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, March 3, 1991 TAG: 9103030098
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JACK BOGACZYK SPORTSWRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
For two years, Monk has headed the planning for the 1991 Metro Conference basketball tournament, which starts a three-day run at the Roanoke Civic Center early Thursday afternoon.
It has been two years of work for seven basketball games spread over 57 hours.
"It's been two hard years, but fun years, too," said Monk, the Virginia Tech associate athletic director who is director of the 16th annual Metro Tournament. "I'm glad the games are here, but not just because it's going to be over. I'm glad because it's time to showcase all of the plans we've made.
"Now, finally, it's our chance to show that we can put on the best tournament in Metro history. It hasn't always been easy, but I've always been confident."
Virginia Tech and the city of Roanoke are hosts for the tournament, which begins its basketball Thursday with two first-round doubleheaders - at 1 p.m., Louisville-Southern Mississippi and Tulane-Memphis State in the afternoon; and at 7 p.m., South Carolina-Florida State and Virginia Tech-Cincinnati. The semifinals are scheduled Friday night at 7, the same hour as Saturday's championship game.
Southern Miss won its first Metro regular-season championship, but no one is expecting any team to waltz through the field for the automatic NCAA Tournament bid. In 12 conference games since Feb. 20, the team with the better Metro record lost seven. It seems only the 14th-ranked Golden Eagles are assured of an NCAA spot before the tournament begins.
There were times when it appeared this Metro tourney would be the last. For four of the eight league members - Cincinnati, Florida State, Memphis State and South Carolina - it is. They are headed for other leagues. It seems Sun Belt Conference members UNC Charlotte and South Florida will join the remaining Metro quartet, probably in an announcement in Roanoke later this week.
The changing names could make this a special Metro tournament. If there are lasts in the '91 Metro, there also are firsts in this more-than-hoops event.
The L'eggs Metro Conference Cheer & Dance Championships will be held in Friday afternoon's free show at the civic center auditorium. It is believed to be the first cheer and dance championships conducted by a conference, and $6,000 in scholarship prizes will be decided on the stage.
Four Metro dance teams - Louisville, Memphis State, South Carolina and Virginia Tech - already have qualified for the Universal Cheerleading Association dance championships in San Antonio, Texas, in a few weeks.
The '91 Metro Festival Tent is another Roanoke innovation in this tournament's history. The plaza between the civic center arena and auditorium will be covered by a tent, measuring 210 feet by 60 feet, a plan hatched by Laban Johnson, Roanoke's special events coordinator.
Under the big top will be food, drink (including beer and wine), live entertainment by five bands at various hours, Virginia Lottery sales and a traveling exhibit from the Basketball Hall of Fame. The tent will be open to all Metro ticket holders.
There aren't as many of those as Monk and his committee, chaired by Jess Newbern of Roanoke and Lu Merritt of Blacksburg, were hoping to see. Only about 5,800 tournament tickets have been sold - at $87 each - and on Tuesday the '91 Metro will begin selling single-session tickets at the civic center box office.
The civic center, which last was a Division I conference tournament site when the Southern played its semifinals and final here for a five-year stretch that ended in 1981, will seat 9,834 for the Metro. Because sales are low, the first two rounds of the tournament will be blacked out on local TV in a 100-mile radius around Roanoke. WSLS (Channel 10) will televise Saturday's championship game.
The Roanoke arena is the smallest to play host to the Metro, which spent its first 13 years in Louisville's Freedom Hall, Memphis' Mid-South Coliseum or Cincinnati's Riverfront Coliseum before starting a rotation that sent it to Columbia, S.C., in 1989 and the Mississippi Gulf Coast Coliseum near the Biloxi-Gulfport beaches a year ago.
The civic center has gotten a much-needed face-lift since mid-December, mostly in the past month. There are new Hydra-Rib basketball goals. What wasn't new was painted.
"It looks like a different building," Monk said during a civic-center visit last week.
Metro tournament flags will fly in Roanoke's downtown this week. There are welcoming signs for the '91 Metro on local interstate highways. The seven visiting schools will bring at least 3,000 visitors to town, even without another ticket being sold. The visitors will start arriving Tuesday.
Even those without a ticket can see the teams. All eight schools are scheduled for one-hour practices Wednesday, starting at 1:30 p.m. at the civic center. Those workouts are open to the public, and the civic center will not charge for parking that day. The practice schedule will be announced Monday.
"The biggest compliment I can pay to our committee is that they've worked through some disappointment on ticket sales to make this a special event," Monk said. "They've worked hard, and they aren't discouraged in any way. Our events will still be special; our atmosphere will still be special. The only thing that will be missing is that the building won't be full."
In contrast to the Metro's lagging ticket sales is the corporate support for the tournament, which perennially has been played before sellout crowds. The Roanoke-Metro organizers have sold around 75 corporate sponsorships, bringing in about $150,000.
Starting with Wednesday's pretournament luncheon at which the Metro's 1990-91 player, coach and freshman of the year will be announced, through Saturday's 7 p.m. championship game, the '91 Metro co-hosts will try to do the same thing as the teams on the floor - score points.
"We're going to be back-slappers, hand-shakers and baby-kissers," Monk said. "We're going to be super-hospitable. It's going to be enjoyable, and entertaining, and, we hope, a little different than past Metros, and a little warmer. At the same time, hopefully we'll show we can stage a major college basketball championship in a complete and professional way."
Southern Miss won the Metro's regular-season championship, but recent results in the league have suggested this could be a different Metro in another way, too - one that doesn't go according to the bracketed form.
"This year, it's anybody's Metro," Memphis State coach Larry Finch said.
This year, it's Roanoke's Metro.
by CNB