INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — The NCAA is giving Indiana an exclusive ticket to showcase March Madness and the basketball-crazed state can’t wait to take center stage this spring.
The NCAA announced Monday that its showcase event — the Division I men’s basketball tournament, all 67 games of it — will be played entirely in or near Indianapolis. The hope is to limit the possibility that the coronavirus pandemic cancels the wildly popular and lucrative tournament for a second consecutive season.
“There are a number of world-class facilities in a close location and that was critical because you have to run a large number of games simultaneously that you can manage and control,” NCAA President Mark Emmert said. “There were a number of cities that were very interested in hosting this event, but the immediate opportunity to do this in Indianapolis was pretty self-evident for several reasons. For one, we were already going to be there.”
