The ACC Tournament’s going to be in Brooklyn this week. Did you ever think in your lifetime you would actually hear that phrase, ACC Tournament in Brooklyn and is it a good thing for the tournament? What do you think of it?
JAY BILAS: Well, when I was playing in the league I didn’t think it ever would be there. If you told me the league one day would be 15 teams or 16, that we’d have 16-team leagues or all this stuff, I wouldn’t have believed it. Because the ACC was eight teams when I played in it a million years ago and it was the best league in the country.
These leagues now they’re not leagues anymore, they’re not conferences. They’re media rights consortiums, they’re just together to house their media rights. And there’s no — geographically it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. But after I saw the Big East — I was fortunate to do the old Big East Tournament in Madison Square Garden, that’s another thing if you had told me when I was a player that the Big East would be better than the ACC Tournament I would not have believed it. But it was.
And being in the Garden for that tournament was one of the reasons for it. And so I had thought, when the ACC expanded, they need to get up to the Garden. And I still believe that.
I think Madison Square Garden would be the perfect place for the ACC Tournament permanently. But in the short run, getting up to Brooklyn or staying in Brooklyn, whatever it is, at the Barclay Center, is fantastic. I know the old guard and North Carolina have driven to the games forever and feel like it’s a birthright to have it in Greensboro will scream tradition, but most of the teams in the old ACC used to be in the southern conference and they weren’t screaming tradition then.
You know, things change. And if we’re going to have 16 teams and be this big behemoth of a conference, the biggest stage is in New York. And I think it’s great.
JAY BILAS: Well, when I was playing in the league I didn’t think it ever would be there. If you told me the league one day would be 15 teams or 16, that we’d have 16-team leagues or all this stuff, I wouldn’t have believed it. Because the ACC was eight teams when I played in it a million years ago and it was the best league in the country.
These leagues now they’re not leagues anymore, they’re not conferences. They’re media rights consortiums, they’re just together to house their media rights. And there’s no — geographically it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. But after I saw the Big East — I was fortunate to do the old Big East Tournament in Madison Square Garden, that’s another thing if you had told me when I was a player that the Big East would be better than the ACC Tournament I would not have believed it. But it was.
And being in the Garden for that tournament was one of the reasons for it. And so I had thought, when the ACC expanded, they need to get up to the Garden. And I still believe that.
I think Madison Square Garden would be the perfect place for the ACC Tournament permanently. But in the short run, getting up to Brooklyn or staying in Brooklyn, whatever it is, at the Barclay Center, is fantastic. I know the old guard and North Carolina have driven to the games forever and feel like it’s a birthright to have it in Greensboro will scream tradition, but most of the teams in the old ACC used to be in the southern conference and they weren’t screaming tradition then.
You know, things change. And if we’re going to have 16 teams and be this big behemoth of a conference, the biggest stage is in New York. And I think it’s great.
