2010 C-USA men's basketball tournament awarded to Tulsa
El Paso Times staff report
Article Launched: 05/15/2008 05:54:39 PM MDT
DESTIN, Fla. -- Conference USA decided Thursday that Tulsa would be the host of the conference's 2010 men's basketball tournament.
UTEP, with backing from the city of El Paso, was bidding for the tournament, but the conference never really opened bidding for the 2010 tournament.
UTEP athletic director Bob Stull said Thursday that city's bid for the 2011 tournament, though, looks good.
The 2010 C-USA men's basketball tournament never truly was up for bidding because the conference decided to take the 2009 tournament away from Tulsa, which originally had been awarded the 2009 tournament, and move it back to Memphis.
The reason for that is the 2009 Big 12 men's tournament is in Norman, Okla., and Conference USA didn't want it's men's basketball tournament to be in such close proximity to the Big 12's tournament.
So the conference then gave Tulsa the 2010 tournament. As such, the next tournament truly up for bidding is the 2011 tournament.
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Personally I feel this is a mistake. Memphis has supported this tournament so well these last few years it has been here and it certainly shouldn’t be moving to Tulsa. If anything El Paso should have been awarded it because they at least show they can support the home team even if they have a bad season. The last time the Tigers played in El Paso there were about 11,000 in attendance even though UTEP was struggling at the time with a losing record. Some like Dan Wolken will complain about the distance from El Paso from the rest of the cities in the league, but at least they show they can support a tournament. Besides if anyone can ride an airplane it shouldn’t matter anyway about the distance to get to El Paso. Tulsa can claim they won the lousy CBI tournament, but they haven’t shown anything in the league when playing against the Tigers. Remember their blowout loss to the Tigers in the C-USA tournament final? It seems like every game that Tulsa has played against the Tigers has been that way since they joined C-USA. UTEP however has played well against the Tigers the last few years and kept it close with the Tigers when they came to Memphis, about the only team in the league who has shown to hang with the Tigers when playing in Memphis. To make matters worse for Tulsa, their head coach Doug Wojcik complained about fan apathy when his team won against Mississippi Valley State at the Reynolds Center in Tulsa. Tulsa also failed to even support the C-USA women’s basketball tournament they were awarded in the past. Is this the kind of city C-USA should award to host a C-USA men’s basketball tournament too just because they have a new arena?! Also let’s remember that there are Memphis connections in El Paso too: UTEP head coach Tony Barbee (John Calipari’s former assistant), UTEP assistant coach Tony Madlock and former Memphis high school stars Randy Culpepper, Jason Jones and Gabriel McCulley. If there is anything else to consider it’s that John Calipari was also in El Paso not too long ago participating in a gold tournament to help benefit the UTEP men’s basketball team. When do you ever hear about John Calipari in Tulsa, Birmingham, Houston, etc. ever doing that for those cities’ home teams? You don’t! The bottom line is El Paso at least has shown why they deserve to host and should have been awarded the C-USA tournament, Tulsa has not!
Great points. I think the league just got beat up on having to move the tourney from Memphis. Frankly Birmingham, New Orleans, Houston and Dallas make the most sense sans Memphis. I'm with you - no real excitement going to Tulsa in 2010.
This is a quote from Tulsa Head Coach Doug Wojcik which I find laughable: "It's really exciting to receive official notification that we'll host the C-USA Championship. With the US Open, the SemGroup LPGA Championship and the Summit League Tournament in the past, Tulsans have shown that we can support an event of this magnitude. This tournament provides another opportunity to show off the city of Tulsa, a new facility and our University," said Tulsa Head Coach Doug Wojcik. Umm Coach Wojcik, weren't you the same person who criticized the city of Tulsa for not coming out to support your own team?!!! The city of Tulsa does NOT deserve to host the C-USA tournament at all when they can't come out to support your own team Coach Wojcik!!! I consider Doug Wojcik to be a idiot. That's right Coach Wojcik, you are an absolute IDIOT!!! I'm hoping Tulsa has a terrible season during the 2009-1010 season leading up to the tournment in Tulsa so that way Wojcik can eat his own words about the city of Tulsa supporting the tournament.
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