March Madness Comes Through Tampa Bay—Again

By Joey Johnston

In the beginning, it was simple. On a quiet spring day, an editor at the Tampa Tribune scrolled to the bottom of an Associated Press wire story that indicated the University of South Florida had been selected to host NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament Mideast Regional early round games the following year in 1983.

Very few people even knew that USF had submitted a bid.

Commissioner Vic Bubas of the Sun Belt Conference, then based in Tampa, quietly worked in accord with USF head coach Lee Ross to extoll the virtues of the Tampa Bay area and the still-new on-campus arena known as the Sun Dome. The NCAA Basketball Committee was delighted to sample a new site in Florida’s growth market.

With a field that included the Kentucky Wildcats, Arkansas Razorbacks, and Purdue Boilermakers, Tampa’s weekend games were sold out (10,146). Sun Dome officials reported a one-day arena record of 2,700 hot dogs sold. Tickets were just $10 (although scalpers got $25, according to reports) — and that unthinkably modest figure probably wouldn’t cover your lunch these days.

That was 43 years ago.

The NCAA Tournament has expanded from 48 teams to 68. Meanwhile, March Madness has become a full-fledged cultural phenomenon, offering noon-to-midnight telecasts, bracket sheets in practically every office and the opportunity for every unknown school in America to have its day.

For the sixth time — and the first time in 15 years — the NCAA Tournament will bring early round games back to the area with March 20 and 22 contests set for downtown Tampa’s Benchmark International Arena.

Tampa Bay’s early round NCAA Tournament legacy?

There were two timeless buzzer-beaters. In 2008, it was the overtime 3-pointer from Western Kentucky’s Ty Rogers that shot down No. 5-seeded Drake, still one of the event’s most replayed iconic moments. In 1983, it was the awkward, falling-down desperation swish by Ohio University’s Robert Tatum, who beat Illinois State. For more than a decade, CBS-TV used the highlight of Tatum’s crazy shot to promote its March Madness coverage.

There were the brand names, of course — Kentucky, Duke, Michigan State, Florida, UCLA, Purdue, Arkansas, Villanova. There were also Ragin’ Cajuns, Toreros and Gauchos.

There was the Saint Joseph’s Hawk (whose wings never stopped flapping) and the full-bearded West Virginia Mountaineer, along with the wonderfully irreverent student sections from Duke and Princeton.

There were 10 unmistakable sideline strategists — Coach K, Rick Pitino, Jim Calhoun, John Calipari, Billy Donovan, and Tom Izzo among them — who are now enshrined at the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame.

There was Duke’s Grant Hill and Wake Forest’s Josh Howard — both first-team All-Americans — along with Saint Joseph’s guard Jameer Nelson, one season away from becoming National Player of the Year. There was also Michigan State’s Draymond Green, destined for anti-hero status in the NBA.

There was the pedestrian-sounding eight-team field in 2008, which became the envy of hoops lovers everywhere after the first round. Four games, four stunning upsets. As the Tampa Tribune put it, “Was Cinderella here? Need you ask? Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes!’’

“When all hell is breaking loose elsewhere, it’s hard for a sports writer to take,’’ wrote national journalist Pat Forde, who was stationed at the early round games in Little Rock, Ark. “Most of us would sell an organ to have covered one of those games in Tampa — much less four.’’

There was the most accomplished early round site of all — to that moment, at least — when the 2011 field was announced. Tampa received Florida, Kentucky, UCLA, Michigan State and West Virginia — a combined haul of 22 national titles, 46 Final Four appearances, and 330 total NCAA Tournament victories.

From humble beginnings in 1983 — almost no one saw it coming — March Madness has become a regular visitor to Tampa Bay’s sporting calendar. What sort of NCAA field is headed for Benchmark? That’s impossible to predict (although many are trying).

But a few things are certain. It’s the opportunity to witness a dominating performance by an All-American — or the shot of a lifetime from a relative unknown. It’s the chance to watch one of the sport’s blue-blood programs — or perhaps savor an all-time upset from an obscure team with a funny-sounding mascot.

It’s one of America’s prime appointment-viewing sporting events, when the bracketologists, loyal alumni, and uninitiated fans gather as one to cheer for the underdog and observe the madness.

For the sixth time in Tampa Bay, those moments belong to all of us.