How many Final Fours have you attended in person?

[pellegrino]

I have a recording of the semifinal if you'd like a copy, where Andre Miller schooled Antawn Jamison and Mike Doleac couldn't stop posterizing Vince Carter.

worst game ever. I was watching that with some friends, all of whom were BYU fans raised in Utah. I on the other hand was raised in a household that bled blue, Carolina Blue and BYU Blue. It was sin to cheer for your rivals. You didn't have to cheer against them, but you couldn't cheer for them.

So there I was, representing for my Heels and all of my lame BYU friends are cheering loudly for the Utes and rubbing it in my face that Carolina was stinking it up. I never could understand some BYU fans.

[hostile]

I sat in the upper bowl of the SEC with my dad and watched the practices for the '79 final four. As a 9 year old I don't recall much but my dad kept telling me how important the final game was.

I went to the '98 finals with my dad and FIL- definitely one of my all-time favorite sporting events. I talked with both Orrin Hatch and Dickie V.

[TripletDaddy]

Correct, if you're talking about in terms of elevating the Final Four to what it is today. But the 1966 Final Four that was won by Texas Western is the most important in history if we're talking about the social impact.

I was referring to neither although I don't disagree with you. It clearly was the most watched Final Four game in history.

I was speaking of basketball as a whole. That game was the most watched college basketball game of all time and the Bird/Magic rivalry became a national phenomenon as a result. The popularity of that Magic and bird rivalry went on to fuel perhaps the most glorious decade in NBA history....the 80s, which basically rejuvenated the NBA's sagging, almost non-existent ratings. The league became an economic juggernaut as well as an agent for social change and pop culture impact. All because of that game in the Huntsman Center.

As a side note, history tells us that college basketball would have integrated regardless of the TexWest team (although that game was definitely a milestone), and in fact, college basketball was already integrated. They were the first team to win a title with all black starters, not the first team to break the color barrier. The impact is debatable because it basically impacted the backwards South. UCLA already had a black player 20 years earlier. (Jackie Robinson). And other places...Indiana, the Ivy league schools,

I would still argue that in terms of saving a near bankrupt NBA (NBA Finals on tape delay...hooray!), mired in drug problems, establishing an almost unbreakable benchmark in college hoops by playing in the most popular game of all time, dominating the better part of a decade in one of the greatest rivalries of all sports and forcing the entire country to choose sides, and the enduring ability that Magic and Bird have to capture the country's imagination, that Final Four game was probably the most important overall in basketball history. Or at least it is fun to think that.

[BoylenOver]

I have never tried but it would definitely be a fun challenge. I have definitely pulled off earlier rounds but as far back as I can recall, SoCal has never hosted a Final Four.

The U, of course, deserves recognition for having hosted the most important Final Four game, which turned out to be possibly the most important basketball game (pro or college), of all time.

And The Pit hosted arguably the most memorable championship game when NC State and Jim Valvano knocked off Phi Slamma Jamma.

[chrisrenrut]

My scalper buddy tells me you can get into the Monday game for cheap. Buy Monday's tickets from fans of the losing team walking out of the Saturday game.

I still remember the scalping going on in San Antonio in 98. The McDonalds a couple of blocks away from the Alamodome seemed to be scalping-central. I remember seeing hundreds if not thousands of dollars changing hands.

I don't doubt that there might be a few willing to part with finals tickets for around face value, but you'd have to be in the right place at the right time. The vast majority I saw were going for a lot more. As we were leaving the North Carolina game and walking back downtown, we saw people paying a thousand dollars for pairs of finals tickets from Carolina fans. I turned to my brother and said "we could cover our expenses for this whole trip by selling our two tickets for Monday tonight". We laughed at the stupidity of the thought and kept walking.

That was 12 years ago (sigh), so things may have changed since then. Indeed, it looks like the 2008 championship game in the Alamodome was a few hundred tickets shy of a sellout (Semi's had 43,718, Final had 43,257)