Byline: Todd Jones Post staff reporter
The University of Cincinnati and Xavier University have the basketball credentials to make a strong ticket sales pitch for their first doubleheader in 40 years at the Atlantic 10-Conference USA Challenge.
UC is 11-2, is ranked No. 4 in the nation by the Associated Press and has sold out all 13,176 seats at its Shoemaker Center home games for the entire season. XU is 11-1, ranked No. 14 and averaging school-record home crowds of 9,043 (with two sellouts) at the Cincinnati Gardens.
But organizers of the Atlantic 10-Conference USA Challenge, created and televised by ESPN, say about 4,000 tickets remain for Thursday's doubleheader at Riverfront Coliseum, featuring XU against Tulane at 7 p.m. followed by UC vs. Temple at 9.
''That's mind-boggling,'' said UC coach Bob Huggins. ''Xavier's in the top 15. We're in the top 15. We're playing quality opponents. And we can't sell out the Coliseum? That's hard to understand.''
About 12,000 tickets have been sold for the doubleheader, but the expected sellout has not materialized.
''The schools botched the whole thing up,'' said Jeff McDonald, public relations director for Riverfront Choice Tickets, a ticket brokerage that has sold fewer than 100 tickets for the event. ''They held onto their ticket allotments until the last possible moment without making them available to the general public.''
Tickets in the 16,000-plus seat Coliseum cost $30.50. Dave Brown, ESPN manager of programming for college basketball, said the cable network set the ticket price after consulting with the schools and the Greater Cincinnati Sports and Events Commission.
Don Schumacher, executive director of the sports and events commission, said the $30.50 ticket price ''is not at all out of line'' for two games.
Riverfront Coliseum manager Bill Barrett said the ticket price didn't cause slow sales. ''I don't think anything steered anybody away other than (ticket sales) not being in front of the general public,'' Barrett said.
UC and XU were each allotted about 7,000 tickets last fall. Schumacher recalls both schools saying at the time that they expected to easily exhaust their ticket supply.
ESPN's Brown said schools were not given as many tickets in the previous two years for the Atlantic 10-Conference USA Challenge. He said those events, held in St. Louis and Wooster, Mass., both sold out.
''We thought it would be possible that the two season-ticket bases (at XU and UC) could buy enough tickets to sell out the arena,'' said Mike Hermann, XU's associate athletic director for marketing.
Far from it. Hermann said XU sold about 3,500 tickets. Paul Klaczak, UC director of ticket operations, said UC sold more than 4,000 tickets.
''Some of our people looked at it as it's on TV and we play Temple three days later (at the Gardens), so if you're a season-ticket holder you're going to pay $30.50 for our game,'' said XU ticket manager Andy Barry. ''Some people just don't like the Coliseum. I've had people specifically say, 'If I'm not in the lower level I don't want them.' ''
Thursday's games are not considered home games for UC or XU. Neither school included the event as part of its season-ticket packages.
''The only thing I think where we missed the boat was in the early season-ticket mailings,'' said the Coliseum's Barrett. ''When season-ticket holders for UC and Xavier were filling out their checkbooks or charging on their credit cards (for season tickets), if there was an option then to purchase (Thursday's game), they would have gobbled them up. That's something we all learned.''
Both UC and XU returned their unsold tickets to Riverfront Coliseum, which put them on sale to the public beginning Dec. 27.
''About that time was when we learned schools were turning back a large quantity of tickets,'' Schumacher said. ''If we'd known (earlier it wouldn't sell out) we might have crafted a public sale for early in the fall.''
