When the Barclays center first opened on September 28, 2012, it was destined to make its mark as the new home of the Brooklyn Nets. Months after it opened, in its first year of existence, the Atlantic 10 held their conference tournament there in March, becoming the first college basketball conference to do so. But it just so happens that the conference and its teams enjoyed playing in the Barclays Center more than anyone thought. With a just-announced new agreement, the Atlantic 10 will hold its conference tournament at the Barclays Center in 2015 and 2016, before taking a two-year hiatus. The A-10 will return to Barclays in 2019, and continue to hold their tournament there through the 2021 season. For the in-between years, 2017 and 2018, the ACC will play their conference tournament in the new arena.
The renewal comes as no surprise for the A-10, which was the first to claim the center as their “home” for conference tournaments. Their teams, specifically Rhode Island, UMASS, St. Bonaventure and Fordham have strong fan bases in the New York area, and no team has to travel all that far to get to Brooklyn. The farthest team away from the center is Saint Louis, who has to trek in from the Midwest, but the next farthest teams (VCU and Richmond) only have to come in from central Virginia.
For the ACC, the choice of the Barclays Center for 2017 and 2018 is quite a bit more interesting. The heart of the ACC conference is located in the south, on tobacco road. That’s right, the state of North Carolina gets most of the credit when people talk ACC. The two traditional powerhouses have dominated the conference in the past and still get the biggest recruits.
This past season, the conference tournament was held at Greensboro Coliseum in North Carolina, and it will be held there again in 2015 before it moves to Washington, D.C. the following year. The ACC has kept their tournament in the South recently, and the transition to Brooklyn doesn’t seem to make a whole lot of sense. Certainly New York is the top media market in the country and it is good exposure for anybody to play there. But location-wise, it makes sense for the Big East to play there, and even the Atlantic 10. But the ACC, which features the like of Wake Forest, Georgia Tech, and Clemson, all Southern schools?
John Swofford, commissioner of the Atlantic Coast Conference has a very positive outlook on the new venue. “Barclays Center has quickly emerged as one of the premier sports and entertainment venues in the world and Brooklyn is a hot spot within the New York marketplace, which is an important part of our league’s new footprint,” he said in a statement this week. The addition of the Syracuse, Pitt and Notre Dame to the mix this year may help make some sense of the venue change this year. Having a tournament that accommodates these members is a friendly gesture, but it still makes it a bit tougher for the tobacco road schools.
Another interesting dynamic of the recent agreement reached this week is impending inter-conference play between the ACC and A-10. This will begin at the beginning of next season at the Barclays Center. This, again, is great news for the A-10, regardless of what it means for the ACC. It is yet another step up for a conference that featured six NCAA tournament teams this March. Although many of the teams got knocked out early in the tournament, the new agreement will A-10 teams a chance to compete on a national stage for years to come. Good news for a conference already on the rise.
Photo Credit: Duquesne Athletics
