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Matt Mead has thrown his support behind a wilderness race,

Cowboy Junky

Cowboy Junky

Well-known member
Would he support an ooc basketball tournament? I would bet if we got a couple/three million dollars in prize money we could bring in a pretty attractive field.

Imagine an ooc basketball tournament in Laramie with our old rivals. I just randomly picked seven teams(only one from each conference). You would have to think this would be a financial cash cow for Laramie businesses and a good way for Wyoming to strengthen our schedule.

The Kenny Sailors Invitational(to debut when the statue of Kenny is unveiled).

Utah
Tulsa

Kansas
Utep

BYU
Wichita State

Wyoming
Nebraska
 
It would be cool no doubt, but I bet the Pepsi Center would be more enticing to most of those teams.

Either way, I would love a regional early season tourney with teams you mentioned.
 
I think the only way to build it is to do it ourselves. We need the SOS. It would be great to play our old rivals. The only way I can see that happening is to make it financially rewarding for the participating teams. In addition, it would be held early in the year so we're looking at late fall in Laramie, not winter. That would make travel easier.

Even if it was a four team tournament, round robin, it would work and it would be great to get BYU and Utah back on the basketball schedule, especially if it's in Laramie.
 
Pretty sure most of those teams would be willing to have a boost in terms of OOC SOS.
Kansas doesn't need help. But they could use even more exposure if this were to get picked up on ESPN. Plus $$$ is $$$.

BYU needs some help scheduling I assume.
Witchita State could use some more help.
UTEP and Tulsa could definitely use a boost.
Depending on how the rest of the Pac is doing, Utah could use the boost.
Nebraska might not need the boost, but could certainly use a win over Kansas, WYO, and Witchita State for their at-large bid AND more regional recruiting.

I think this could be a legitimate tourney.

The $$$ for the schools, the early season good weather, the city of Laramie and Albany County (who really need the help) could all make $$$, the exposure for these teams, and the wins by beating 2 or 3 of those teams would be great for the teams involved.
 
Not to mention, it would give legitimacy to Wyo in terms of "street cred". The fans would likely be showing up. Basketball fever would pick up through the area, and state.

And, given Kenny Sailors some more recognition.
 
If you had 2 million for the winner and 1 million for second place, I think you could get just about anybody in our region, including Kansas and Nebraska.

It would be a big deal for our t.v. partners as they would broadcast the entire thing.

In addition, we would have our pick of the non-big 5 league teams as they would all want a chance to prove something and earn valuable SOS early in the season. We could probably get Wichita State, Tulsa, Utep, Gonzaga, and definitely BYU.

Utah and BYU would travel for that. CU, Nebraska, and Kansas probably would as well.
 
I think we're giving ourselves too much credit. The Kansas Jayhawks would choose Laramie over Maui or the Bahamas? Get real people. A regional tournament would be great, but let's be realistic.

BYU or Utah. I don't think both will come. If they play each other, it'll either be a home and home or in salt lake at energy solutions arena. So that means one from each conference. If it's BYU, what team from the PAC 12 would be interested? Tad Boyle said that he's done with us after this year, home or away. Other conference contenders would prefer Vegas tourneys. If it's Utah, maybe we'll get st. Mary's to rep their conference but there's no way we convince the zags to come here, at least not initially.

Nebraska? I like it. Coach has ties to the region (the sheep) and some of our recruiting interests are mutual.

That being said, tournaments involving premier teams rarely have a home team that's a serious contender (Maui, Bahamas, etc.). It just doesn't make sense for big teams, it makes winning a tourney too difficult. So the only chance of us playing in a legit regional tourney is to have the Pepsi center as a host.
 
cali2wyo said:
I think we're giving ourselves too much credit. The Kansas Jayhawks would choose Laramie over Maui or the Bahamas? Get real people. A regional tournament would be great, but let's be realistic.

BYU or Utah. I don't think both will come. If they play each other, it'll either be a home and home or in salt lake at energy solutions arena. So that means one from each conference. If it's BYU, what team from the PAC 12 would be interested? Tad Boyle said that he's done with us after this year, home or away. Other conference contenders would prefer Vegas tourneys. If it's Utah, maybe we'll get st. Mary's to rep their conference but there's no way we convince the zags to come here, at least not initially.

Nebraska? I like it. Coach has ties to the region (the sheep) and some of our recruiting interests are mutual.

That being said, tournaments involving premier teams rarely have a home team that's a serious contender (Maui, Bahamas, etc.). It just doesn't make sense for big teams, it makes winning a tourney too difficult. So the only chance of us playing in a legit regional tourney is to have the Pepsi center as a host.
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Maybe the Casper Events Center. The only way we can make this happen is if the state pays for a large enough prize to lure in teams that otherwise won't come to Wyoming. The only way that is going to happen is if it benefits Wyoming and is in the state.
 
You can't get the tightwads in the Legislature to give a F about giving more money to Wyomingite's, and you think they'll pony up money to pay Utah or BYU if/when they win your hypothetical tournament?

Bottom line is we need them a lot more than they need us in your scenario.
 
Cowboy Junky said:
Maybe the Casper Events Center. The only way we can make this happen is if the state pays for a large enough prize to lure in teams that otherwise won't come to Wyoming. The only way that is going to happen is if it benefits Wyoming and is in the state.
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Casper would be a better choice for a 8 team tourney than Laramie. A international airport, more people roughly around 50k, plus Casper is centrally located so folks from the northern and western parts of the state can see the Pokes play rather than drive 6-7 hours, IF the roads are good, just to see a 2 +/- hour game in Laramie.

Otherwise, we'd have to use the Pepsi Center in Denver as some on here suggested.
 
Gentleman, I like the idea being thrown around here, but we have to change this idea of "Prize Money". To the best of my knowledge, no pre-season tourney offers prize money (I don't know if that's even legal per NCAA rules); what they do offer is a participation fee. The Battle 4 Atlantis, for example gives, $2 million to EACH team that participates; this year, they had 8 teams. Granted, that is one of the more competitive fields.

So if we want to have a decent field of 8, we are looking at probably at least $10 million a year to fund a tourney. That's only a third of our entire athletic budget, no problem right?
 
I bet a lot of those schools, like usual, would complain about having to travel out that far. In Denver at the Pepsi Center? I could see that. The big-named schools like Kansas are typically only playing tournaments in highly-populated areas.
 
Regardless of whether Wyo could host a tourney or not, Wyo NEEDS to be playing in a tourney every year, along with a solid road trip (Kansas/Nebraska schools or Washington/Oregon schools). Duke and North Carolina aren't coming to Laramie. We can go there though.

We can't expect people to just come to Laramie. We need to go establish ourselves in the NCAA Tourney (Sweet 16s, multiple NCAA Tourney appearances) and establish ourselves beating some big name teams before we expect teams to come to Laramie.

Let's do it the hard way instead of complaining about it not happening the easy way.
 
Cowboy Junky said:
I think the only way to build it is to do it ourselves. We need the SOS. It would be great to play our old rivals. The only way I can see that happening is to make it financially rewarding for the participating teams. In addition, it would be held early in the year so we're looking at late fall in Laramie, not winter. That would make travel easier.

Even if it was a four team tournament, round robin, it would work and it would be great to get BYU and Utah back on the basketball schedule, especially if it's in Laramie.
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F--k BYU*. Let their program wither and die.
 
You all do realize that when we had the Casper Shootout Tourney (not the single game), we struggled to bring in teams like Alcorn St., Norfolk St., and Eastern Kentucky?

I agree with some on here that we're dreaming a little big.

If we did have a tourney, we'd probably be lucky to get a mid tier WCC team, like Pacific or LMU.
Probably a regional Summit team, like one of the Dakota schools.
Maybe a mid tier Horizon team. And probably another top school from a small conf like the WAC or OVC or something of that nature.
I don't think you'd see any big school coming to a WYO tourney anytime soon.
 
Some of the tourneys have teams from the same conference. If WYO, CSU, CU, and Denver got together for a Rocky Mountain High Tourney at the Pepsi Center, I think it could be viable. Maybe the new pot industry could sponsor :lol: . Joking aside, I think we should work on it. A regional tourney with solid teams would be cool.

I think anything in WYO is a long shot sans teams that hurt RPI. IMO, the most realistic option that wouldn't hurt us would be something in WYO and target RPI teams of about 150-200.
 
ragtimejoe1 said:
Some of the tourneys have teams from the same conference. If WYO, CSU, CU, and Denver got together for a Rocky Mountain High Tourney at the Pepsi Center, I think it could be viable. Maybe the new pot industry could sponsor :lol: . Joking aside, I think we should work on it. A regional tourney with solid teams would be cool.
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This is the most realistic option I've seen yet. However, it still doesn't solve the problem of getting schools to come to Laramie.
 
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