The problem with the AAC in general is that most of the schools in the conference are football first schools. UH, SMU, Tulsa, UCF, USF, East Carolina and Tulane are all football schools. Yes, SMU has had some recent success with basketball, but it's still a football first school. None of these schools are going to send any appreciable number of fans to a basketball tournament anywhere from several hundred up to close to 2,000 miles away. SMU had a pathetic crowd showing at their NCAA tournament game in Tulsa, a mere couple hundred or so miles from Dallas. Even when the tournament has been in Orlando, UCF and USF fans don't turn out in droves to see it, because they couldn't care less about BB. That's just the way it is.
Since you're not going to attract a sizeable crowd for this tournament no matter where you play it, they now seem hell bent to put it as close as humanly possible to Wichita, KS, thinking that the Wheatshocker fans will save the day. They may or they may not, but you're going to preclude the other BB schools in the conference from showing up for it. As bad as the arena in Hartford is, the crowds were still far larger there than they ever were in Orlando. I think it drew decent crowds the one year it was in Memphis, however I think we knocked Memphis out of it early that year, so the crowds probably dropped off considerably once they were eliminated.
Who in OK City cares anything about the AAC, other than the Tulsa alums who live there? With no local AAC school there, it makes no logical sense, even if it will attract a sizeable crowd of Wichita State fans. So what, we're creating a Wheatshocker's Invitational now? If it's a choice between OK City and Tulsa, Tulsa should be the place. You'll get a decent Memphis crowd there, at least. They travel pretty well.
To me, Memphis, Philadelphia and Hartford, in that order of preference, are the three most likely venues to maximize attendance, because those are the cities with conference schools that are basketball first. Memphis makes the most geographical sense, but the combination of Philadelphia and Hartford being in relative close proximity ought to be the focus. Philly should have any number of available venues.
Another possibility would be the NYC area, if not NYC itself. What about the new arena in Newark where Seton Hall plays? You still get to advertise it as a weekend in the greater NYC area, without necessarily having to pay the crazy prices for hotels in Manhattan, unless you want to. That puts it roughly halfway between UConn and Temple, and NYC is a much better and bigger draw for fans of other schools than anyplace else you can possibly play it. That also qualifies it as a true neutral site since no school is located in the immediate area.
