Reno Has Inside Track for Big West Tournaments : Basketball: Athletic directors vote to hold men’s and women’s events at Nevada. Final approval expected next week.

The Big West athletic directors Friday voted to hold the 1996 conference basketball tournaments in Reno at Nevada’s 11,200-seat Lawlor Center in the first year of a revamped format in which only the top six teams will advance to the postseason playoff.

The conference’s Athletic Council, which includes university presidents and faculty representatives as well as athletic directors, is expected to give final approval next week. The council earlier had asked for a recommendation by the directors.

Rob Halvaks, the conference’s associate commissioner, said the other two sites under consideration were Thomas & Mack Center in Las Vegas, which has been the tournament host the last two years, and the Pyramid at Long Beach State.

“The decision to go to Reno was strictly a financial one,” said Halvaks. “Reno had the best offer from that standpoint.”

Nevada Athletic Director Chris Ault said his school, working with the city’s Convention Bureau, will pay expenses for the teams and guarantee each participating men’s team $7,500. Each school with a team in the men’s tournament will be required to buy 100 all-session tickets, which they can sell to their fans. The bid did not include a financial guarantee to participating women’s teams.

“Our city is very enthusiastic about having the tournament, and we feel it will be a good move for the conference,” Ault said. “In the past, teams have not been guaranteed anything financially.”

Halvaks said each school received $3,700 last year when revenues from the tournaments were divided.

Utah State, which had been expected to bid on the tournament, did not do so, Halvaks said.

Halvaks said the bids were for the 1996 tournament only. “The group elected to look to only one year at this point because of the transition,” Halvaks said.

Nevada Las Vegas and San Jose State will leave the Big West after the 1995-96 academic year. North Texas, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, Boise State and Idaho will join the Big West at that time.

Halvaks said the new tournament format is designed to put added emphasis on the 18-game regular-season conference schedule.

The first- and second-place teams in the regular season will move into the tournament at the semifinal level after the third- through sixth-place teams play. In the event of a tie for sixth place, a tiebreaker procedure will determine the team that advances.

Big West basketball coaches had favored retaining the format in which all teams advanced to the tournament.

The men’s and women’s tournaments are scheduled March 7-10.