EVANSVILLE, Ind. (WEHT) — After getting a taste of March Madness with the Ohio Valley Conference tournament, the Division-II elite men’s basketball tournament will soon call Evansville home for the 28th year.
The division-II tournament will take place at the Ford Center from March 21-25 and the Evansville Regional Sports Commission expects many visitors from different parts of the country.
“From as far as California, the east coast and Florida as well so people are going to be coming in from all over the country whether it’s just the athletes bringing their fans, their families as well with them but so we’re going to have a lot of visitors from all over the country,” explains Erin Graninger, marketing & events coordinator for the Evansville Regional Sports Commission.
Local businesses, especially those in the downtown area hopeful the streets will be crawling with visitors who will visit their business and take advantage of what the city has to offer.
“There’s several games each day and that’s for the division-II NCAA and so we’ll get people who comes over here before or after,” said Charles Campbell, co-owner of Tiki on Main.
Besides fun and excitement the madness of March always brings
it does more for the city as a whole
“That brings a lot of opportunities for our hotels and while they’re here got to eat,” Graninger explained. “They’re going to go to our restaurants, they’re going to go to our shops, they’re going to walk around and explore downtown,” she added.
Another group of excited basketball fans are the screaming eagles fanatics as the University of Southern Indiana fans are happy to be cheering on their men’s basketball team in the postseason as well.
“We were actually their headquarters for USI,” Campbell stated. “They came in, decorated the place put things on the table and all that good stuff.”
Campbell says they are expecting many USI fans to come down to the bar on Saturday as the men’s basketball team takes part in the College Basketball Invitational.
