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NCAA basketball and golf are on the mind of Wichita State athletic director Eric Sexton. He expects to find out if the NCAA will select his school to host events in both sports later this month.
WSU is waiting on a Nov. 12 announcement of second- and third-round sites for the 2014 and 2015 NCAA men’s basketball tournaments. Intrust Bank Arena is in the running again.
Wichita missed out two years ago when the NCAA declined to award the arena part of the 65-team tournament for 2012 and 2013. Greater Wichita Area Sports Commission president Bob Hanson said he hopes hosting games in the women’s tournament in 2011 will help. Wichita ranked first in attendance among sites without a home team in the field and eighth overall among the NCAA’s 16 subregional sites. Three games over two days drew around 9,000 fans.
“The women’s tournament showed great promise as far as us showing this is a basketball community,” Hanson said.
WSU also bid to host the 2014 NCAA men’s golf championships at Hutchinson’s Prairie Dunes Country Club.
“Prairie Dunes is a top 20 facility and we’re proud to be a partner with them,” Sexton said. “That decision will be coming down the pike.”
Prairie Dunes and the Hutchinson Convention/Visitors Bureau are working with WSU.
Sexton was also recently named to the NCAA men’s golf committee. He must abstain from discussion or voting regarding the site.
The Wichita Country Club hosted the event’s previous appearance in Kansas, when Oklahoma State won the 1963 title. The 2013 tournament is at Atlanta’s Capital City Club Crab Apple Course. The tournament takes place in late May and early June and features a field of 36 teams, plus individual golfers from non-qualifying teams, that advance from regional play.
