Matt Tripepi here for EA SPORTS NCAA® Basketball 09. When the Toughest Places to Play contest began
back in November, I thought Xavier University had a pretty good chance of
making the finals knowing how rabid their fan base was (I graduated from there
back in '98). Little did I know what a
great show they would put on for us on February 5th against Temple
at the Cintas Center in Cincinnati, OH.
Tyler Vaught, Product Manager for NCAA® Basketball, and I
started off the day touring the Cintas Center.
We could see Sean Miller and the team practicing as well as the
newspapers that were placed at each seat for fans during the Temple
introductions. We also took notice of
the ESPN crew setting up for their broadcast later that night. It was interesting to see all the NBA scouts
that they were expecting on press row, especially Joe Dumars.
After picking up our press passes, we headed over to the
student center to set up our NCAA Basketball 09 tournament. The crowd was pumped and the 32 that were
signed up were excited to get a t-shirt and the opportunity to win an
Xbox. Let's not forget that college kids
love free swag and a little competition.
We even had a rep from the NCAA make the trip over from their
headquarters in Indianapolis.
I was surprised at how many students chose to play as UCLA,
knowing they beat Xavier in the Elite 8 last year. We kept the games to one 3 minute half so
every possession was critical. A student
named Tyler eventually walked away with the goods after five wins in about an
hour and a half.
We booked over to the Cintas Center, set up a console and
had a few people demo the game before tipoff.
We ran a sim for Temple/Xavier and headed down to the student section to
get some video and photos of the game.
The crowd was intense and they even had each section coordinated to wear
either blue or white (the school colors).
Not an easy task to get 10,250 people on the same page.
The student section was going crazy after a few big plays by
the Musketeers. Lots of body paint,
weird masks, funny signs and chants for each player. I especially thought the "Borat" chant was hilarious.
They even managed to get one of the team mascots, the Blue Blob, to crowd surf.
Xavier ultimately came away with a win and we had a GREAT
start to the Toughest Places to Play tour.
Be sure to cast your ballot and look for updates on future
tour stops soon!