LAS VEGAS – The calendar says Wednesday and the clocks on the wall say 9:30 a.m., but here at the Caesars Palace sports book, it’s fair to ask if time is a real thing or just a figment of one’s imagination. It’s a place where one day bleeds into another, and so too do the games, the wins and the losses.
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On this particular morning (or is it really late at night?), the crowd ranges from a guy in a sport coat working on a computer to three friends sprawled out and hung over, nursing glasses of water by their side. Those three are doing better than the two guys across the sports book who are asleep, mouths wide open and facing ceiling. Only the man upstairs – the one running the security footage – knows exactly how long they’ve been there.
As security lets sleeping men lie, a calm remains over the sports book, until inexplicably, a handful of people let out a primal scream. No games are even close to being over, so it isn’t immediately clear what they’re so excited about, until a far-off TV monitor shows St. John’s guard Shamorie Ponds missing a jumper to end the half. Some 3,000 miles away at Madison Square Garden it’s just another missed shot. Here in Vegas, it means that Xavier has covered the first-half line of minus 3.5.
Within shouting distance of the screams, a trio of twenty-somethings sit in the corner of the book oblivious to it all. One is decked out in full Arizona gear, another in Oregon garb and a third in an indistinguishable NBA jersey. All three are here in the present, but their minds are still stuck on the past. They’re still reeling from a bad beat, when they say the Texas Longhorns cost them a five-team parlay. When a reporter mentions to the kid in Oregon gear that hey, at least the Ducks won the night before, he cracks a sheepish grin and looks down. Before he can explain why, his friends do it for him.
“He got too drunk and missed the whole game,” the friends say. The kid in Oregon gear quickly corrects them. “I woke up for the last few minutes.”
Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas, and if the above details sound like the start of a wild bachelor party weekend, think again. The three young guys at the sports book are in town for the Pac-12 tournament, one of four conference tournaments that took place in the city over a 10-day period. The four tournaments featured 51 teams from 13 states and brought more than 150,000 fans through the turnstiles, and tens of millions of dollars in economic impact to the city.
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Over the last few years, Las Vegas has become the West Coast’s version of New York, a Championship Week mecca for basketball fans across the country.
Only in Las Vegas, it isn’t just about the basketball — rather, all the sights and sounds that surround it. Here are those stories.
While the Pac-12 plays its tournament at the glistening new T-Mobile Arena, to get to the home of the WAC tournament (and the WCC tournament earlier in the week), go about three miles southwest of Las Vegas strip. Hang a left when you see Exhale Nevada Marijuana Dispensary. When you hit Déjà Vu’s Adult Emporium, you know you’ve arrived.
The home to the WAC tournament is the Orleans Arena, which could probably be best described as “the part of Vegas your parents would worry about you getting lost in.” It feels like a part of town where dreams go to die (if they ever even existed), which makes it an all-the-more appropriate place for the WAC to end its season. This league will almost certainly send just one team to the NCAA Tournament.
Yet on a bright and sunny Thursday morning, none of that matters to the hundreds of Grand Canyon fans who arrived for an 11 a.m. tailgate.
The story of GCU’s rapid rise has been told quite a bit (and recently by The Athletic’s Brian Hamilton), but after years of feel-good feature stories on the school’s rabid fan-base and the coaching of Dan Majerle, it’s officially go-time for the Antelopes. Since Majerle took the job in 2013, he talked openly of the significance of the second week in March 2018. This is the first year the ’Lopes are eligible for the NCAA Tournament. Meaning, it’s also their first WAC tournament game.
An hour or so before tip-off the fans can’t wait any longer. Hundreds line up for free hot dogs and soda as the band plays in the background and the cheerleaders go through their routines. Well over 100 students are part of the group, a bunch who willingly skipped a couple of days of classes to be here with the team. In classic college kid fashion, many left first thing that morning to avoid having to pay for an extra night at a hotel while also admitting they fully expect to lose it all back at the tables. “I plan on losing every dollar to my name,” says Mitch, a GCU senior, while describing the excitement of his first trip to Las Vegas.
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Once inside, the dark, dingy, quarter-filled Orleans Arena perfectly suits the wayward conference. The WAC isn’t so much a “conference” as it is a conglomerate of schools that are basically here because no one else wants them. Some, such as New Mexico State, have a relatively rich basketball tradition, while others, such as Utah Valley (the two-seed), are still looking for their NCAA Tournament bids. Others, such as Chicago State, are simply trying to get by. In 2016, the Chicago Sun-Times reported the school had an operating budget for athletics of just $2.6 million. For comparison’s sake, Sean Miller, who will coach in the same city on the same day that Chicago State plays at Orleans Arena, will make nearly that much in salary alone this year.
The team Grand Canyon plays on this afternoon, Missouri-Kansas City, is another program that falls much more into the have-nots of the conference. Yet what it lacks in sleek apparel or basic amenities, it makes up for with the most unique group of superfans found anywhere in college basketball.
That isn’t hyperbole, as just moments before tip-off, a reporter notices a group of about a dozen or so young men standing a few rows behind the team’s bench. At first glance they appear to be the typical rabid students, but on closer inspection, something feels just a tiny bit off. One, they’re all drinking beer – even among a group of college kids, it feels as if there should be at least one underage guy who ruins the party for everyone. Second, they all look a little bit too old to be the typical college students.
When the reporter asks if they’re students and they say no, he’s hardly surprised. He assumes they’re young alums. Which makes their response that much more baffling.
“None of us even went to school,” says Logan, who is originally from Wisconsin. “Some of us have never even been to Kansas City.”
Best story of Championship Week. Meet UMKC's "super fans." They came to Vegas three years ago for a bachelor party, stumbled into the WAC Tourney and started rooting for UMKC. None went to the school or are even from Kansas City. UMKC won and they've come back every year since pic.twitter.com/OxJGkUqUFk
— Aaron Torres (@Aaron_Torres) March 8, 2018
Oh, this story is good.
As it turns out, the guys were in Vegas a few years back for a bachelor party and decided to attend the WAC tournament on a whim. They took an affinity to UMKC’s school mascot, the Kangaroos, and decided to root for the school. When the ’Roos won, the guys decided to return the next day. Eventually UMKC lost, but it also spawned an annual tradition. Now the guys, all living in different corners of the country, come to Vegas every year to cheer for the Kangaroos. This is their third year in a row they have come, and the group has grown over time. The school itself has even come to embrace them.
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“We love their support,” UMKC athletic director Carla Wilson says. She adds that the school regularly exchanges e-mails with the guys, inviting them to road games when the ’Roos travel to the cities they live in.
It’s a story that is quintessential Vegas, but also quintessentially college hoops at its core. Down the street, Arizona is set to take the court in front of 15,000 screaming fans who have traveled from all corners of the country. UMKC – which, in theory is competing for the same national championship as Arizona – will play in front of 15 die-hard fans, none of whom went to its school.
They wouldn’t have it any other way.
History will say that Grand Canyon held on to win its first WAC tournament game, surviving to play at least one more day of meaningful basketball in Las Vegas. Back on the strip a few miles away, there are no such concerns for Arizona. Not only will the Wildcats win comfortably over Colorado, but their ticket to the NCAA Tournament was punched weeks ago.
Therefore, for the thousands who have traveled from Tucson, it isn’t really about the party inside the arena during the game, but instead the party outside T-Mobile. As soon as the game goes final, they pour out of the arena in a cascade of red, into the bars and watering holes just a few hundred feet away.
Understand that, while Las Vegas has always had a place in the hierarchy of great Championship Week sites, it wasn’t until the Pac-12 made the switch in 2013 (and joined the other three leagues in hosting conference championship here) that it truly became the mecca it is now. It was also a boon for the Pac-12, which struggled to draw fans when the games were played at Staples Center in Los Angeles.
For those who’ve never been, Staples Center remains a picturesque arena on the inside, but is a brutal place to play a multiday conference tournament. Traffic makes getting to the arena tough (especially for noon tip-offs), parking is expensive and there really isn’t much around the arena except for a few restaurants. Venturing more than a half mile from the arena at night will get you a warning from the locals.
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“It sucked,” P.J., an Arizona fan who is in Vegas says of the L.A. days. “All you did was go to the games and go back to the hotel.”
That changed when new commissioner Larry Scott made the move to Las Vegas. The tournament was well-received those first few years at the MGM Garden Arena, where fans still like to point out that – thanks to an venue attached to the MGM Casino – you could sneak out to play a few hands of blackjack at halftime.
Things really took off last year when T-Mobile Arena, built for the NHL’s Vegas Golden Knights, opened. At T-Mobile, it isn’t just about the arena, but the experience around it. There’s a massive courtyard with a live DJ and all sorts of games for kids. There are also a handful of open-air bars within a few hundred feet of the arena.
And seeing Arizona fans in all their glory on Thursday afternoon shows how far this tournament has come. On a sun-splashed 80-degree day, hordes of fans in bright red stand in the bars with a cold beverage, some playing corn hole, others recounting the game and plenty more just working on their tans. Seeing all the fun to be had, it’s easy to understand why the Pac-12 set an attendance record at last year’s tournament. Nearly 87,000 attended over the four days, including more than 18,000 for the title game. Just 11,000 attended the championship game its final year at the Staples Center.
The good news for the league is that an event that has been dubbed the Arizona Invitational is starting to pick up traction among fans from other schools. A couple wearing Oregon State gear on Wednesday night recounts a funny story of going to an alumni event the first year the Pac-12 tournament was held in Vegas. The event drew just a dozen or so people and was held at the Rainforest Cafe.
“We literally had rain drops falling on our heads,” says the woman, who prefers not to be named. They tell this story from the same alumni association event in 2018, where the couple guesses close to 100 people are in attendance. They say friends they hadn’t spoken to in years recently reached out for more information about the Pac-12 tournament after seeing them post pictures on Facebook.
Nobody sums up the Pac-12 tournament experience better than P.J., the backwards-hat wearing Arizona fan, who says he will begin planning his 2019 trip as soon as he gets home.
“Vegas, beer and Cats basketball,” he says. “What’s better than that?”
The desert sun begins to set, as a taxi makes its way down a congested freeway at rush hour. Its final destination is the Thomas & Mack Center, home of the city’s third conference tournament this day, the Mountain West.
That the conference plays its tournament in this venue perfectly sums up the state of the league. Thomas & Mack is a great venue, but not quite world-class like T-Mobile. The league is much the same. It’s not quite a “mid-major” league, but it isn’t high-major either. However, because of San Diego State’s semifinal upset of top-seeded Nevada, the conference will get two bids — the Wolf Pack and the Aztecs, who beat New Mexico in the final.
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As fans in Wyoming yellow and New Mexico red file into the arena for the second game of a night-cap doubleheader, it all feels so authentic. This is a good league playing in a good venue, with really good coaches and hard-nosed players. Just a few miles off the strip, there’s little flashy about the play on the court.
The action in the stands is another story altogether, however.
With Wyoming and New Mexico, the reporter turns to his right, and sees a Wyoming fan standing a few rows up, wearing a cowboy hat, a big barrel around his waist and a grin from ear to ear. Immediately, the reporter knows that, with all due respect to the teams on the court, this man and his barrel are the story of the night.
Favorite character Ive met in Vegas so far. His name is Ken, but he said to feel free to call him "Barrel Man." He also told me, "Im one of the most famous people in Wyoming," and honestly, who am I to question him? pic.twitter.com/eD1HlRZ2lv
— Aaron Torres (@Aaron_Torres) March 9, 2018
His name is Ken Koretos. By day he sells cars, and by night he answers to “Cowboy Ken” (although he insists that you can call him “Barrel Man” if you prefer). Cowboy Ken has been going to Wyoming football and basketball games since he was little, placing his hand just a few feet from the ground for extra emphasis. He guesses he’s been to about 1,000 Pokes games, first donning the barrel 35 years ago in honor of Tim McKernan, a Denver Broncos fan who wore similar attire. He adds that he once had 20 barrels but is down to “about four or five” after giving many away to charity.
What’s especially charming is that the longer you talk to Barrel Man is that in a city filled with characters, it’s hard to figure out if he considers himself one or not. The longer you talk to him, the more you realize that the barrel is just part of his ethos, as much who he is as the air he breathes and the blood that runs through his veins. Listen to him speak, and he seems genuinely confused why so many questions are being asked, when all the answers feel so obvious. The idea that someone wouldn’t know Cowboy Ken doesn’t seem to be something that has crossed his mind.
“You know,” he says. “I’m one of the most famous people in Wyoming.”
It’s 11 o’clock on a Thursday night, and I’m talking to a man dressed solely in a cowboy hat and barrel around his waist.
Maybe Ken is right. Maybe I am the crazy one.
After a day that started with fans screaming 15 hours earlier in a sports book, the reporter plops down in a cab ready to head back to the hotel. Little does he know that a sage cab driver awaits, ready to perfectly contextualize all the experiences of his day.
The ride begins with the reporter discussing the previous few hours, explaining how a hoops junkie could have seen upwards of eight to 10 games in three venues since sunrise. How Las Vegas has become a hoops hot bed. How the four leagues have embraced the characters of Las Vegas, while creating some other their own, like the UMKC super fans and Cowboy Ken.
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The cab driver processes the information. While doing so, he thinks about the city itself, and how it has evolved from the Sin City moniker to a place where NHL, NFL and WNBA franchises all feel comfortable enough to move here.
“We used to be extreme,” he says of the city he’s called home for more than 30 years. “Now we’re mainstream.”
Apparently the Pac-12, Mountain West, WCC and WAC agree. They have made Las Vegas the new mecca of college basketball.
(Top photo by Stephen R. Sylvanie/USA TODAY Sports)