Southern Conference basketball tournament to return to Asheville

Jason Sandford

Jason Sandford is a reporter, writer, blogger and photographer interested in all things Asheville.

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The Southern Conference has decided that Asheville will be home to its annual basketball tournament in 2012-1014. There’s a press conference coming up to detail the decision.

The conference has said that it needs the Asheville Civic Center to finish some significant upgrades to its facility, work that is already in the works.

The decision will be a boon to downtown businesses. The tournament will draw thousands of fans to Asheville, people who will be eating, drinking and staying in hotels. The event will also lend the city a real March Madness feel. When the tournament was held in Asheville from the mid 1980s to the mid 1990s, hoardes of face-painted basketball nuts roamed the city, cheered on their teams and really got into the spirit of the tournament. (The winner of the event gets an automatic bid to the NCCA Basketball Tournament.) Good news all around.