K.C. eager for tourney’s return

By Mark Fagan     Mar 11, 2007

? The Big 12 Conference won’t be bringing its postseason basketball tournaments back to Oklahoma City if Brenda Tinnen has anything to say about it.

Tinnen is general manager of the new Sprint Center in Kansas City, Mo., and will be overseeing the 18,500-seat arena that will be home for next year’s men’s tournament. The women’s tournament will be played in nearby Municipal Auditorium.

So she spent some time checking out the competition here in Oklahoma City, milling about the Ford Center, taking the much-hyped “58 steps” across the way to the Cox Convention Center for women’s games, and otherwise soaking up the ambiance of nearby hotels, tailgating events and the ever-popular Bricktown food and entertainment area.

She likes what she saw, but is ready to put on an even better show next year.

“They’ve executed a great event. … They’ve certainly set the bar,” said Tinnen, a senior vice president for AEG facilities, which also manages the Staples Center in Los Angeles. “I’m not going to lie to you and say we’re willing to share it with other cities. We want it in Kansas City, and we’d love to keep it there.”

Like Oklahoma City, Kansas City promises to have plenty of entertainment options available near the arenas. Oklahoma City has Bricktown, home to restaurants, bars, movie theaters and other attractions.

Kansas City has the Power & Light District, a new entertainment area about a “football field and a half” wide that is bookended by Municipal Auditorium and the Sprint Center, Tinnen said. With plenty of hotels, access to the Plaza and a long hoops history, Kansas City shouldn’t have any problem being competitive in landing future tournaments.

“With the opening of Sprint Center (in October), it puts Kansas City back into the game for these events,” she said.

And she’s playing to win.

¢ Detox ‘Hawks: A handful of Kansas fans were carted out of the Ford Center on Thursday night, including a couple in handcuffs who earned 10-hour stays in a nearby detoxification center.

Among their offenses: public intoxication, sneaking into the center’s suite level and trying to snag extra wristbands to get their friends access to the level’s Victory sports bar.

One guy in a Kansas T-shirt was so brazen as to lean over and reach into a box of unused admission bands – in front of two uniformed Oklahoma City police officers.

“It’s a game people play,” said police Capt. Pat Byrne, who serves as the center’s security manager. “Some get in. Some don’t.”

Such activities are by no means limited to KU fans, he said, although most of Thursday’s offenders tended to be sporting blue shirts or otherwise indicating their penchant for KU support.

“They’re … dedicated,” he said, with a grin.

Robin Williams, the center’s guest relations manager, whose employees are responsible for turning away such offenders, understands the attraction to making it onto the suite level, the center’s only place where alcohol is served.

“I’d try it,” she said, laughing. “We’d all try it. I’d want to be where the alcohol is, too.”

Most offenders simply are escorted back to their seats, Williams and Byrne said. Only unruly or combative fans are taken outside, with especially intoxicated folks escorted to the detoxification center for a 10-hour stay, and until someone signs them out.

“That’s for the ones who wouldn’t learn their lesson unless we took ’em out,” Byrne said.

¢ Enough Clemson-Miami, already: As if the Billy Packer love weren’t enough…

Donna McFann and her died-in-blue, KU fan husband drove to Oklahoma City for one simple reason.

“We don’t get the games on TV,” she said. “It’s all ACC.”

The McFanns finally had the opportunity to catch the Jayhawks after traversing the more than 1,100 miles between the Ford Center and their home in Lynchburg, Va., where a mere 12 people pushed unsuccessfully for Comcast to make ESPN Full Court available through local cable.

So here they are, hanging out with friends in a suite in the arena, handing out “Kansas Basketball” stickers to fellow fans and otherwise spreading the gospel of KU hoops.

And no need to listen to Packer – the Wake Forest alumnus, CBS commentator and longtime ACC, uh, analyst.

Packer will be back on during this week’s NCAA Tournament, of course, but McFann hopes she’ll be on the Road to the Final Four.

“We’ll go anyplace we can get tickets,” she said.

¢ Big Eight boosters: Trish Dugan isn’t sporting a Jayhawk sticker, a string of crimson-and-blue beads or a blinkety-bling-bling KU button.

But she’s more than proud to be pulling for – OK, make that not rooting against – Kansas during the Big 12 Tournament, now that her team is out.

She’s a Missouri Tiger, after all, but is joined at the philosophical hip with her lifelong Jayhawk friend, Denise White, whose daughter Ashley is a senior at KU.

“She won’t cheer for us, but when we do something good, she’ll give me a high five,” White said.

That’s because Dugan and White share a love for the Big Eight Conference, which became the Big 12 with addition of four Texas schools that they don’t much care for.

Front of Dugan’s favorite shirt for the tournament: “GO TIGERS” and “We Suck but We’re Loyal.”

On the back: “GO BIG 8.”

“I’ll be wearing it” today for the final, Dugan said. “Go Big Eight!”

Maybe she’ll even cheer for KU a bit.

“My sister got her degree from KU Med,” she said.

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