bearhair
03-19-2007, 06:04 PM
All team, official, and committee travel for the tournament (and for the NCAA as a whole year-round) is handled by a single travel agency: Short's Travel Management in Waterloo, Iowa.
The winning team is traditionally given the floor from the championship venue to keep. What the school does with it varies: some schools sell pieces of it to fans, others simply put it in storage, and still others use it in their venues, such as Florida did in 2006, re-painting the RCA Dome hardwood and placing it in the O'Connell Center. The only exception to this was in 1978: for that year's Final Four, the NCAA had to truck in Indiana's court from Assembly Hall to the Checkerdome in St. Louis, as the basketball floor at that hockey arena had been warped as a result of water damage.
The NCAA has banned the Bi-Lo Center and Colonial Center in South Carolina from hosting tournament games, despite their sizes (16,000 and 18,000 seats, respectively) because of an NAACP protest at the Bi-Lo Center during the 2002 first and second round tournament games over that state's refusal to take down the Confederate Battle Flag from their state capitol. Following requests by the NAACP and Black Coaches Association, the Bi-Lo Center, and the newly built Colonial Center, which was built for purposes of hosting the tournament, were banned from hosting any future tournament events.
The winning team is traditionally given the floor from the championship venue to keep. What the school does with it varies: some schools sell pieces of it to fans, others simply put it in storage, and still others use it in their venues, such as Florida did in 2006, re-painting the RCA Dome hardwood and placing it in the O'Connell Center. The only exception to this was in 1978: for that year's Final Four, the NCAA had to truck in Indiana's court from Assembly Hall to the Checkerdome in St. Louis, as the basketball floor at that hockey arena had been warped as a result of water damage.
The NCAA has banned the Bi-Lo Center and Colonial Center in South Carolina from hosting tournament games, despite their sizes (16,000 and 18,000 seats, respectively) because of an NAACP protest at the Bi-Lo Center during the 2002 first and second round tournament games over that state's refusal to take down the Confederate Battle Flag from their state capitol. Following requests by the NAACP and Black Coaches Association, the Bi-Lo Center, and the newly built Colonial Center, which was built for purposes of hosting the tournament, were banned from hosting any future tournament events.