‘We’re just loving the experience.’ Fans grateful the Boys’ Sweet 16 is back.
A lot has changed about the experience at Rupp Arena for Kentucky high school basketball’s boys’ state tournament.
There are, of course, all the guidelines and restrictions on fans and teams due to the COVID-19 pandemic, masking included. And there are the changes to the arena itself as it undergoes major renovations. But attendees seem to have taken all those new things in stride after last year’s tournament was canceled altogether.
The 2021 KHSAA Boys’ Sweet 16 presented by UK HealthCare Orthopaedic Surgery & Sports Medicine got underway Wednesday morning bringing a mix of joy and relief.
“It’s wonderful for these kids to get out and do something and enjoy themselves again. They’ve been housed up way too long. … It’s good to be here,” said Lisa Mason of Knott County who watched the Patriots fall to Elizabethtown in the first-round game, but has another state title bid with her daughter’s team next week. The Lady Patriots survived a four-overtime thriller Tuesday night to earn the 14th Region crown. “It wasn’t easy. They team’s a little battered and bruised, but they came out of it.”
Mason didn’t have any trouble with the new ticketing process, which requires tickets to be purchased online through Ticketmaster with the actual ticket pushed to holders’ phones instead of paper.
Elizabethtown teacher Greg Spears attended with his family and found ticketing and getting in “smooth sailing.”
“It’s wonderful. It’s my first year at E-town as a teacher and we’re just loving the experience,” Spears said.
Fans not part of the student sections have their seats socially distanced for the event, a change Spears saw as a positive. He sat together with wife Jessica and their two children, but had some space around them.
“It’s actually really nice being a little bit spread out so you don’t feel like you’re on top of everybody,” Spears said.
Elizabethtown was one of the five teams making it back to the Sweet 16 after losing out on the event last year.
“It’s a great feeling that we got this far because our season was cut short last year,” said Daniel Torres, a soccer player for the Panthers who sported a black tank top in the student section along with some others. “I think they are a lot hungrier because they missed out on what they had last year. I think we’re a lot hungrier as a student section. … I really like the support of E-town because we’ve really come together as a community. Everyone supports the team.”
Another difference this year is that tickets are issued for individual games rather than two-game sessions, meaning the intermingling of fans and overlapping of crowds that helps generate another level of excitement for some games will be missing, but the Kentucky High School Athletic Association has to work within the parameters of federal and state health guidance.
Attendance for Wednesday’s first game was announced at 3,010 with Rupp limited to 25 percent capacity under COVID-19 rules. The two-game attendance of the 2019 first session was 10,850 and included Louisville behemoth Trinity, one of the state’s larger schools by enrollment.
Julian Tackett, commissioner of the Kentucky High School Athletic Association, said the feedback he’s been getting has been positive.
“We’ve got a tournament where there’s a lot of people just damn glad to be here,” Tackett said. “I think a few weeks ago, there’s a lot of people that weren’t convinced this was going to happen. So it’s worked out very well and everybody’s super cooperative.”
Logistics of getting fans out of the arena after the first game so it could be cleaned and prepared for the next game went well, Tackett said.
“They understand why we’re doing what we’re doing — so the fans can come to watch and support their teams,” Tackett said. “It’s just the way it’s going to have to work with all these restrictions.”
The KHSAA has now held state championships in several sports after being forced to cancel last year’s boys’ and girls’ Sweet 16s and the spring sports of baseball, softball, track and field, tennis and even eSports. Each tournament amid the pandemic has been a challenge.
“We’ve learned with every event — every day we’ve learned. We learned with the first game today a couple of things,” Tackett said. “All in all, it’s gone very well — the distancing was very good the first game. Now, we’ll see what happens as it gets later and there are more intense games, close to the quarterfinals and semifinals — but everybody was extremely cooperative and I do think they’re just glad to be here and the folks at Rupp have been so good to work with. It’s a good thing for everybody.”
Boys’ Sweet 16
What: Sixteen-team tournament to decide Kentucky’s high school basketball state champion
When: Wednesday through Saturday
Where: Rupp Arena
Tickets: Seating is limited because of COVID-19. Tickets available for purchase at KHSAA.org.
