HUNTSVILLE – Inside a Propst Arena that was dressed to the nines for its latest appearance in the spotlight, Conference USA Commissioner Judy MacLeod doffed an imaginary hat to Huntsville and the effort surrounding bringing the league’s basketball championships to the Tennessee Valley.
A few hours before the CUSA women’s tournament tipped off tonight, followed by the men’s opening game featuring, MacLeod fielded questions about the conference’s inaugural trip to the Rocket City.
The tournament concludes Saturday. The first three days will be streamed live on ESPN+ with Friday and Saturday action moving to CBS Sports Network.
“This city has just put out the red carpet for us,” MacLeod said.
While the arena has multiple uses as a hockey, basketball and concert venue, its design is accommodating to all events. MacLeod said CUSA has played tournaments in arenas not necessarily conducive to a basketball atmosphere and that was part of the reason the league signed a two-year deal to play the championships here.
“The facility sets up super nice for basketball, so we’re excited about that,” she said. “We haven’t been playing in a traditional basketball arena, so this would be a good change for our people. Really, it’s everything the city has to offer our fans. But more importantly, the people here, everyone works together from the mayor to the sports commission to the building here, it’s just seamless.
“It’s like we never once got, ‘well you need to call so and so for that’; you know, there’s great communication, great effort by everybody to get ready for this. So that was a big selling point for us.”
Sam Houston State (20-11 overall, 13-3 CUSA) comes in as the men’s No. 1 seed. The Middle Tennessee State University women, who posted the program’s first win over in-state rival Tennessee in a game played at Propst Arena in December, is the top seed in that bracket.
Tournament winners get CUSA’s automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament. The MTSU Lady Raiders (26-4, 16-0) seem poised to get an at-large bid if they didn’t win the tournament, the only squad in either field likely to get one outside of capturing the title.
One team expected to draw a good crowd is the Liberty men, who have former Hartselle star and junior guard Brody Peebles. The fourth-seeded Flames play Texas-El Paso at 5:30 p.m. Thursday.
The top seeds play Wednesday: Sam Houston against Florida International, a 76-67 winner Tuesday over Jacksonville State, for the men. The following game will pit MTSU against UTEP, which defeated Sam Houston State 78-64 to advance on the women’s side.
“You’re gonna get a ton of effort every time you see one of our games,” MacLeod said. “It’s really an entertaining league. We shoot a lot of threes, run up and down the floor a lot.”
The tournament is a collaboration of the Huntsville Sports Commission, Huntsville-Madison County Convention and Visitors Bureau and the City of Huntsville.
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