Is the EXPO center a good host for the tourney.?
Anyone see any familiar faces or Old friends in the crowd??
Does anything stand out??
Just wondering what people thought and experienced after the 1st night.
Hope all was enjoyable, I hope to make it to a few games this week.
I love it. The only thing I don't like is the way the seating is, they should just charge the same for all seats and you can sit where you like.
I loved the atmosphere. There were a lot of people there yet you still had room to sit withouth feeling bunched in there.
The Expo Center is the place to hold this great event. The most important thing that I saw last night was the excitement of the students. Some were very sad that their run had come to an end but the anticipation before the start was tremendous.
The teams that lost had nothing to hang their heads about and the teams that won did so with sportsmanship. The enthusiasm of students made for a great atmosphere.
Problems seemed to be minor compared to times in the past.
Another great improvement is security. I think parents will be more at ease letting their High School age children attend there by themselves than having it in a high school gym that is over crowded.
I don't think the atmosphere suffers at all at the Expo Center. I've been to many a regional tournament, and I thought last night's games had a great atmosphere. The Belfry/Pburg game was poorly played by both teams, which took some excitement away, but the SV/Paintsville was loaded with good atmosphere with both schools having wonderful student sections.
I loved the seats but wish all our crowd could have been together! We had a hard time leaving because of other people trying to get our lower arena seats for the 2nd game.
The floor needs to be moved to the closer to the end where the seats are and the last 4(2 bottom and 2 upper) sections closest to the wall do not need to be used, and seating needs to be better organized.
Aside from those 2 things, it is a great place to hold the tourney.
Well, I guess I am in the minority here but I do not like the atmosphere. It is not a High School Regional tournament atmosphere. To me it is almost a circus like atmosphere, and the 13th Region refs are the clowns. If this is going to be the future location for all 15 region tournaments, they should allow some regular season high school teams. At the games last night, Pburg and Belfry were kinda in shock the whole first quarter of play. This event In my opinion has taken something away from the excitement of the tournament. It has taken the attention from the kids and placed it on a building. I was also shocked to see I had to pay 5.00 to park, I was not aware of other places that were free to park. I spent about $40.00 on two people at one game including concessions, tickets and parking. Always before I would attend every night of the regional even if my team got beat out. I will not be back this year. Just my opinion!!
I agree BeaverCreek, I didn't think there was an atmosphere of basketball in the building. Yes there were plenty of people there, but it didn't feel like a basketball game b/c the gym wasn't packed and everything was just too big for me. I loved back in 2004 when region was at Prestonsburg and the gym was packed full every night. That's what you live for playing basketball in high school.