Pitino Already Doing Sales Job on the ‘Other’ Game

Rick Pitino doesn’t want to hear any talk that the Kentucky-Massachusetts game in the Final Four is the true championship.

“Who’s to say that Massachusetts or Kentucky is better than Syracuse or Mississippi State?” the Kentucky coach said Monday. “You don’t know that.”

The Massachusetts-Kentucky showdown is the headline attraction at Saturday’s semifinals in New Jersey, with the Syracuse-Mississippi State game commanding less attention.

Mississippi State, a fifth-seeded team, upset Connecticut and Cincinnati to win the Southeast Regional while Syracuse upset top-seeded Kansas to come out of the West.

And that is why Pitino is not in favor of seeding teams after they reach the Final Four.

“I think what makes college basketball so great is that it’s unpredictable,” he said. “I know we have our hands full with any of those opponents.”

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It was madness all right for people trying to buy tickets for the games at East Rutherford, N.J., without taking out a bank loan.

With only 18,500 seats available, brokers’ prices ranged from $950 in the upper levels to $8,000 for courtside tickets to Saturday’s semifinal games and Monday’s championship game.

Only 1,000 of the $70 three-game ticket packages were made available to the public through an NCAA-sponsored lottery last year. About 91,500 applications were received

Syracuse, Massachusetts, Mississippi State and Kentucky received 2,500 tickets apiece, the NCAA controlled 3,500, the National Association of Basketball Coaches got 3,000 and the Meadowlands Organizing Committee 1,000.

Fueling the steep prices is the limited seating. By comparison, 38,540 saw last year’s championship game at the Kingdome in Seattle, and 64,151 attended the title game at New Orleans’ Superdome in 1993.

Beginning in 1997, arenas must have a seating capacity of at least 30,000 to qualify for the Final Four.

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The usually quiet country roads of Starkville, Miss., have been anything but during Mississippi State’s run in the NCAA tournament.

Many of the university’s 14,000 students have celebrated each victory by joy riding around campus, blowing horns and setting off firecrackers.

“It’s been bedlam. I have never seen anything like it,” Athletic Director Larry Templeton said. “I’ve dreamed of having this kind of experience. Having grown up here, to be here firsthand is almost unexplainable.”

A crowd of about 5,000 packed the small Golden Triangle Regional Airport Sunday to greet the Bulldogs, who earlier in the day beat Cincinnati, 73-63, in the Southeast Regional final to earn a spot in the Final Four.