NCAA men’s basketball tournament’s Midwest Regional coming to Sprint Center in 2017

Kansas City didn’t show up when the NCAA announced regional cities for the 2016 men’s basketball tournament, and Kathy Nelson started to get nervous.

“I was sweating just a little bit,” said Nelson, president of the Kansas City Sports Commission. “I had to tell myself not to get anxious at this point. The odds were still in our favor.”

Two years’ worth of announcements remained and Nelson didn’t have to wait long. When the 2017 sites were announced, Kansas City and the Sprint Center was awarded the Midwest Regional semifinals and final, games known as the Sweet 16 and Elite Eight.

Four teams will come to Kansas City and one will leave celebrating a Final Four appearance. The men’s regional is the first here since 1995. Since then, Kansas City has been site of early-round men’s tournament games five times, including 2009 and 2013 at the Sprint Center.

“When you get into the Sweet 16, the spotlight is more pronounced for your city,” Nelson said.

Kansas City is on something of a roll when it comes to landing NCAA events. Late last year, the city was awarded 14 NCAA championships through 2018, and the first of those — Division III women’s soccer at Swope Soccer Village and the Division II football championship at Sporting Park — will be played in December.

But Division I men’s basketball tournaments are the NCAA’s biggest prize in terms of filling hotel rooms and restaurants.

“As always, I am so proud when our city gets selected to host events of this magnitude,” Kansas City Mayor Sly James said. “We have a reputation for being the most hospitable, welcoming hosts to our visitors and I am confident that players, coaches, and fans alike will enjoy their time here in Kansas City.”

The NCAA women’s tournament is also selecting future sites and Kansas City has bid for preliminary round games. The announcement will happen later in the week. The Sprint Center held a women’s regional semifinal and final in 2010.

The Big 12 men’s basketball tournament, which has been played in Kansas City 13 times in 18 years, is scheduled to be played at the Sprint Center through 2016.

The men’s regional site selections for 2016-18 followed the future Final Four announcements last Friday, and the NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Committee, which oversees the process, changed the playbook.

All of the regional sites announced Monday are in traditional arenas, no domes or retractable-roof stadiums. The NCAA is seeking a better game-day atmosphere in full arenas rather than half-filled domes.

“I think if you polled coaches, the majority would say they would rather play in an arena than a dome before they got to the Final Four,” said Dan Gavitt, NCAA vice president for men’s basketball.

And unlike in previous years, the NCAA did not require a Final Four host city to hold a regional final in the previous year as something of a dress rehearsal for the building. That opened the field for more cities without domes to become regional final sites, like Kansas City.

Another change was semantics: The rounds of 64 and 32 will be known as the first and second rounds beginning in 2016. The NCAA had been calling those the “second” and “third” rounds, calling the play-in round before the first weekend of the 68-team tournament the “first” round.

The Midwest scored big in all three years of men’s tournament announcements.

St. Louis’ Scottrade Center, Oklahoma City’s Chesapeake Energy Arena and Wells Fargo Arena in Des Moines, Iowa, were granted first- and second-round games in 2016.

Besides the regional final in Kansas City, the 2017 men’s tournament includes first- and second-round games at the BOK Center in Tulsa, Okla.

In 2018, Wichita’s Intrust Bank Arena will hold first- and second-round games with the Midwest Regional final at CentruryLink Center in Omaha, Neb.

Wichita hadn’t held an NCAA Tournament since 1994, and the regional final will be a first for Omaha since the bracket went to 64 teams in 1985.

Gavitt said 57 cities bid for the preliminary rounds, which were awarded to 36 sites. Dayton, Ohio, was awarded what’s now known as the First Four, four games that mark the first leg of the tournament, reducing the field from 68 to 64 teams.

Through this cycle of games, Kansas City will remain atop the leaderboard when it comes to sites.

More NCAA Tournament games (128), regional finals (17) and Final Fours (10) have played in Kansas City than any other city.

This story was originally published November 17, 2014 at 11:41 AM with the headline "NCAA men’s basketball tournament’s Midwest Regional coming to Sprint Center in 2017."