Byrnes grumpy with the NCAA

[Curly06]

Last Wednesday, I picked up a USA Today in Anaheim. On the front page was a story about the NCAA going into the ticket scalping business (http://www.usatoday.com/sports/college/mensbasketball/2008-03-18-final-four-tickets_N.htm). It's amazing. This is the same organization that forced the coaches' association to take a Montana State assistant basketball coach's Final Four tickets away for five years when he was caught scalping.

Why am I raising these NCAA-related issues? Because I am grumpy with them right now.

Last week, I wrote about the issues we were experiencing in arranging our group's air travel from College Station to Dallas to Anaheim. We made a simple request to the NCAA and its travel agency Short's Travel that due to the recent death of Donald Sloan's mother, we asked the NCAA to have our aircraft stop in College Station to pick-up our travel party and then stop at Dallas Love Field to pick up the team after the funeral. We were told, “no way.”

Lots of good "complaining" since he can't comment on what we're all mad about.


http://www.aggieathletics.com/feature.php?type=1&SID=MFB

[jagowar]

good.... i have a feeling he isn't going to push it further though. i imagine he is pissed off about pretty much everything related to our mens tourny this year.

[Pflugerville Ag]

Didn't know hotels accomodations for the tourney worked this way...


I've always wondered what the difference is between a 9-seed and a 2-seed like our women. I gathered a few examples last weekend.
The NCAA and its host site assign each team a hotel and the quality of the hotel is based on seed. Schools are not permitted to stay elsewhere.
Our women stayed at a five-star hotel in Baton Rouge, La., with a helpful staff available for their every whim and need. I am told that when our women arrived at the hotel, more than 20 hotel employees lined the lobby and curbside ready to assist and welcome our travel party. I also heard numerous stories about the attentiveness and helpfulness displayed by the hotel staff and by many of the people our group came in contact with during their stay in the city. A friendly hotel and community makes our athletes, coaches, and fans feel great.
I wish the same could be said about our hotel stay in Anaheim. The hotel called themselves a resort, but that must be because they had pool and a hot tub. Star-rating of our property? No stars at our hotel.
The bottom line is, we believe that if our men were seeded higher, the NCAA would have adjusted our air travel and we would have received a better quality hotel situation. Live and learn.

[texags08]

:mad:

[Pflugerville Ag]

If as a 9 seed, we stayed at a ****hole hotel, I wonder where a 16 seed stays?

[Pumchavas28]

:wow: That is total BS... as far as Hotel's & what ever else goes on outside of the games themselves, every team should be treated the same.....:mad:

[ftaggie09]

I read this on the other aggie website the other day. I'm glad he is saying something I with that other ADs would start to speak up too. I doubt that it will change anything but maybe this will open others eyes to how biased and full of themselves the ncaa is