With the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament, we were able to show that Downtown Indianapolis is just as vibrant as ever. Now, don’t retreat back inside as basketball fans leave our fair city.
With no nearby direct flights to Indianapolis available, Baylor University and Gonzaga University fans had to go well out of their way to attend the culmination of the 2021 NCAA men’s basketball season Monday night.
I can confidently say that bringing the buzz of college basketball back to our city was only possible through the everyone’s efforts to mask up, socially distance, and operate within the constructs of necessary public health orders. We must not let up now.
The meeting Monday is one most hoops fans have waited for all year — two years, really — a matchup between two teams who have been on a collision course since the bracket came out.
At age 84, the affable, silver-haired Bobby Plump remains one of the state’s top basketball ambassadors and nothing, not a pandemic or an unprecedented NCAA Tournament, can keep those yearning to meet him away.
Many point to the 1987 Pan American Games, and more recently the 2012 Super Bowl, as pivotal moments in Indy’s now 200-yearlong history. Without question, March 2021 is forever cemented on the timeline.
We all know that adversity is part of the game. And unfortunately, that is where we find ourselves as a community today—dealing with some pandemic-related economic adversity, but also with a golden opportunity to rebound and showcase our teamwork, resiliency and dedication.
About 2,000 health care, public safety and hospitality workers were on the floor or seated nearby for Miley Cyrus’ musical tribute on Saturday night at Lucas Oil Stadium.
Health officials said Saturday they are investigating whether anyone was exposed to COVID-19 by Alabama residents following Friday night’s death of a fan who had been in Indianapolis for March Madness.
After a surprise delivery five weeks early in December, feisty 3-month-old Molly Skolnick of Carmel will be represented at the Final Four by a seat-filling cutout as part of an April Fools ruse concocted by her parents.
Fortune magazine reported that ticket prices are 145% higher than any other Final Four in history. Brokers say the prices would be even higher if a Midwestern team was in the final rounds.
Volunteers are coordinating bus transportation for teams, running to the store for toothpaste for players, sanitizing practice courts, doing laundry for the teams, beautifying the city with new trees, picking up trash, setting up seating pods in the venues and assisting out-of-town media and other guests with just about anything they may need.
Indiana teams were noticeably absent from the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament this year—only Purdue even made the field of 68 teams. But there are still some Indiana-related reasons to watch the Final Four. Here are five of them.
Although athletes may have been tested on campus, the NCAA has not ramped up its usual testing program at national championships such as March Madness, sources tell AP.
The NCAA and local organizing groups set up expanded ambassador and item-delivery services relying on volunteer help to take care of needs for players, officials and others working inside.
While the state’s rollout of eligibility for the vaccine has come under some fire, many Hoosiers have begun planning for a summer and fall free from worry, ready to resume their normal lives.
