Year-Round Tournament Prep
3/10/2011 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
March 10, 2011
2011 ACC Men's Basketball Tournament
No. 10 NC State (15-15, 5-11 ACC) vs. No. 7 Maryland (18-13, 7-9 ACC)
March 10, 2011 • 7 p.m.
Greensboro Coliseum (23,745) • Greensboro, N.C.
TV coverage: ESPN2
ACC Men's Basketball Tournament Site
NC State Game Notes | Maryland Game Notes | GameTracker
GREENSBORO, N.C. – When NC State tips off against Maryland tonight in the 58th-annual ACC Men’s Basketball Tournament, it will be the beginning of 40 minutes of action at the Greensboro Coliseum.
And the end of nearly a year’s worth of preparation to make sure everything goes smoothly for the Wolfpack basketball team during its stay at the tournament.
The process begins shortly after the previous year’s tournament ends, when the Wolfpack Club decides on the hotel that will serve as home base for the team and its fans for the duration of the weekend. This year that decision was easy. The Greensboro Marriott Downtown, located in the heart of the city, has been NC State’s home base for years when the tournament is in the Gate City.
That home is important, because it’s an opportunity for fans and the team to interact. It’s also the home of the popular Friday morning Wolfpack Club breakfast, which also features a former NC State player addressing a packed ballroom of supporters. This year’s speaker is former All-America Thurl Bailey, who was also selected to represent NC State at Saturday’s ACC Legends Brunch.
Pretournament preparation continued in the offseason, when the Wolfpack scheduled a Jan. 5 game against Elon at the Greensboro Coliseum, so this year’s team could experience playing on the court and shooting at the rims that will be used during the tournament. The Wolfpack won that game, 87-72.
And that’s about the time NC State director of sports medicine Charlie Rozanski and director of basketball operations Levi Watkins began making, in earnest, their final arrangements for this week’s tournament.
Rozanski, for the last 19 years, has been in charge of making all travel arrangements, hotel room assignments and menus for road trips. That was part of his job description before the Watkins’ position as director of basketball operations became popular at most NCAA Division I schools.
But he works closely with Watkins, the former Wolfpack player who been in his current role for the last two years, to make sure everything the team needs is taken care of for the duration of the tournament.
“It’s a collaborative effort between the two of us,” Rozanski said. “There is a lot of stuff that needs to be coordinated and we split our duties pretty evenly.”
Rozanski makes sure the team gets to its destination and is well-fed while there. Watkins arranges practice sites, makes sure the team knows its schedule and communicates with Lowe about the day’s events.
Part of the contract for the hotel includes more than three dozen rooms for the official traveling party, which includes the team, coaches, managers and support staff. There are also rooms set aside for athletics department personnel and university administration traveling to the tournament. Those are coordinated through executive senior associate athletics director David Horning and associate athletics director Barry Joyce.
“It can get a little crazy because there are a lot of people involved, but we really don’t know what the week’s schedule is going to be until the tournament pairings are announced,” Rozanski said. “That means we don’t know what we'll be doing until Monday before we arrive on Wednesday. That can be hard on the hotel staff, especially catering.
“But once we win on Thursday, it becomes easier because you know you’ll do the exact same thing on Friday.”
The team generally eats all of its meals at the hotel, instead of fighting the crowds around town.
“Our guys like it better when they can have a set menu, come down from their rooms, eat and go back up,” Rozanski said. “These guys are with each other all the time. They’d rather sit down and eat with each other rather than sitting at a restaurant for an hour.
“So most of the time we have a preset menu we eat at the hotel.”
While most of the week’s visible events are going on at the Greensboro Coliseum, it’s up to the individual schools to arrange their practices while in Greensboro. Since January, Watkins has been taking care of the little things, like scheduling time at the UNC Greensboro gym, where the team usually practices at all times other than Wednesday’s mandatory one-hour practice at the coliseum.
“We like going to UNCG," Watkins said. "They have a nice set-up right there on campus, not too far away from the hotel. We’ll spend our practice time there on Wednesday and Thursday before the game.”
But he also makes sure the team has meeting room space for basic walk-through preparation, team meetings, study halls and pregame film work.
“We’re kind of fortunate in that this is spring break for the university,” Watkins said. “There’s still some academic work that they’ll do throughout the day, because we do have some guys who have things due early next week.
“But mostly we’ll be doing a lot of game preparation and giving them a lot of time to focus, relax and think about what they need to do for the game.”
• By Tim Peeler, tim_peeler@ncsu.edu.