SI:AM | The Fyre Festival of Women’s Basketball
Good morning, I’m Dan Gartland. I still can’t believe the images from the Las Vegas Invitational.
In today’s SI:AM:
🏀 The terrible Las Vegas Invitational
🏈 Jimmy G’s big season for the Niners
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What happens in Vegas shouldn’t happen again
College sports are technically amateur, but this weekend’s women’s Las Vegas Invitational was laughably amateurish.
The event featured 10 teams playing at the Mirage Hotel & Casino on the Las Vegas Strip. Sounds glamorous, right? In reality, the tournament organizers set up a court in one of the hotel’s ballrooms, and the teams played in the middle of the beige expanse with virtually no spectators.
According to Stadium’s Jeff Goodman, the teams were told the venue would use the same setup the professional Athletes Unlimited women’s basketball competition used earlier this year at the Sport Center of Las Vegas. The AU setup featured more arena-like lighting and a large video board behind the scorer’s table, flanked by big banners that obscured the fact that the games were being played in an otherwise empty room.
Compare that to the court for the Las Vegas Invitational. It was garishly lit, and the removable wall that divides the ballroom took up the entire background of the main broadcast angle.
But the aesthetic nightmare wasn’t the biggest issue. On Saturday, Auburn’s Kharyssa Richardson was injured late in the Tigers’ game against Colorado State, and, because the venue did not have medical personnel on site, it took 45 minutes for paramedics to arrive and treat her. The game was delayed for nearly an hour.
There were other issues, too. There was no scoreboard aside from two TV screens on the scorer’s table. According to Big Ten Network analyst Meghan McKeown, tournament organizers didn’t provide towels, so players were told to bring the hand towels from their hotel rooms. The only seating for spectators was a few rows of folding chairs.
“We’re very sorry,” site coordinator Ryan Polk told ESPN. “The court and the lighting, that stuff hasn’t been an issue. But we needed to have full-on bleachers. We have notified The Mirage we won’t be coming back again. This is a one-time disaster in terms of events. It definitely did not go the way we thought or planned. We just severely missed the mark when it comes to the spectator side.”
No. 6 Indiana won both its games at the event to improve to 7–0 on the season. Afterward, Hoosiers coach Teri Moren was highly critical of the conditions. While Polk apologized to teams and players, Moren said she thought “there are probably other people that need to apologize as well for wanting us to come and play in this event.”
“What’s disappointing is the aesthetics,” Moren added. “It’s not a fan-friendly environment. As women’s basketball coaches, we’re trying to move our game forward. It felt like, because it got so many ticks on social [media], that we’d taken a couple steps backward in this moment. We have an obligation to grow our game, and we completely missed on this opportunity. You have a lot of really good teams that are here representing their conferences. I see all these other tournaments going on, and footage of that. This was a major miss in my opinion in terms of helping to grow this game.”
That’s the main takeaway here. It’s impossible to imagine a men’s tournament going this poorly, let alone an event featuring a top-10 team in the country. In fact, the men’s Las Vegas Holiday Classic was played across town at the 7,500-seat Orleans Arena. (The stands were mostly empty as UC Irvine beat New Mexico State in the final.)
Moren said playing in a ballroom wasn’t the issue, but that the Hoosiers discussed whether it was safe to continue playing at the Mirage given what happened to Richardson.
“We’ve played in ballrooms before,” Moren said. “We were in the Bahamas last year: another ballroom scenario, but looked far different than the ballroom we’ve played in the last two nights. I don’t want there to be the notion that playing in ballrooms is dangerous. But in this particular event, there were a lot of things that needed to be better.”
The best of Sports Illustrated
In today’s Daily Cover, Conor Orr examines how Jimmy Garoppolo has turned the corner for the 49ers this season:
Put simply: During the best years of the Kyle Shanahan regime in San Francisco, it has always seemed like Garoppolo was ever so slightly holding the team back, enough so that Shanahan and the team brass sacrificed multiple first-round picks to select his presumed replacement, Trey Lance. Forced to go back to Garoppolo when Lance tore his ACL in the second game of the 2022 season, Shanahan has built an offense—and a team—that would largely protect the quarterback from altering the equation.
Pat Forde believes it was only a matter of time before Luke Fickell jumped from Cincinnati to a job like Wisconsin. … After leading the Jets to victory against the Bears, it makes sense for New York to get behind Mike White right now, Orr writes. … Albert Breer’s MMQB leads with Jacoby Brissett’s win over the Buccaneers, in his last start before Deshaun Watson is eligible to return from his suspension.
Around the sports world
We’re tracking all the knockout-stage scenarios for every World Cup group. … Odell Beckham Jr.’s lawyer released a statement after the receiver was removed from a plane in Miami. … Aaron Rodgers’s thumb injury is reportedly more serious than he let on. On top of that, he left last night’s game with a rib injury. … Manchester United is reportedly considering a move for Christian Pulisic. … Lionel Messi is reportedly close to a deal with MLS’s Inter Miami. … WWE is holding tryouts this week at IMG Academy as part of a new recruitment strategy that targets elite athletes.
The top five...
… things I saw yesterday in the NFL:
5. The skunk in the stands at the Browns game. (It was the Bucs who stunk, though. They lost to Cleveland 23–17.)
4. Jordan Love’s first touchdown pass of the season.
3. Kenneth Walker’s effort to keep his legs moving on a touchdown run.
2. Josh Jacobs’s 86-yard game-winning touchdown run in overtime. (He also had a nice 30-yard score in the first half.)
1. Brian Robinson’s big hat.
SIQ
Former MLB pitcher Dave Righetti turns 64 today. On July 4, 1983, he threw a no-hitter for the Yankees. Three years later, he led the American League in saves, becoming the first pitcher to ever throw a no-hitter and be a saves leader. Dennis Eckersley later joined him in that category. Who is the only other pitcher to throw a no-hitter and also lead the AL or NL in saves?
- John Smoltz
- Derek Lowe
- Aroldis Chapman
- C.J. Wilson
Friday’s SIQ: On Nov. 25, 1908, Italian Dorando Pietri and American Johnny Hayes met in a rematch of their epic, controversial marathon four months earlier at the Olympics in London. Which New York City venue hosted the race?
- The Polo Grounds
- Madison Square Garden
- Central Park
- Coney Island Beach
Answer: Madison Square Garden. The building (now known as the second Madison Square Garden, with the current arena between Seventh and Eighth Avenues being the fourth building to bear the name) was at the time the largest indoor spectator venue in the world, but running 26.2 miles inside was still a challenge.
Organizers were able to squeeze a track into the arena that measured a tenth of a mile long and attracted a sold-out crowd to watch Pietri and Hayes run around it 262 times. That might sound boring, but the race in London had been a really big deal and the rematch was highly anticipated.
At the Olympics, Pietri surged to take a late lead but stumbled upon entering the stadium where the finish was to take place and was helped to his feet by race officials. Though he crossed the finish line first, he was disqualified because he had received outside help and Hayes was declared the winner.
On top of that, Hayes, a native New Yorker, was a hometown hero, and, in a city full of immigrants, the matchup between Hayes (the child of Irish immigrants) and Pietri (from the Italian island of Capri) had special significance. A 1954 SI article reported that the race had been run in front of “a packed house of Italian and Irish-American partisans.”
The race lived up to the hype, with Pietri finishing a mere 60 yards ahead of Hayes. With the United States fully in the throes of marathon mania, a third meeting between Hayes and Pietri was organized. In the race, held in March 1909 also at MSG, Pietri won easily.
From the Vault: Nov. 28, 1977
Lane Stewart/Sports Illustrated
This is one of the most recognizable covers in SI history. But I don’t know if I’ve ever really paid much attention to the headline: “College Basketball’s Secret Weapon.” It’s difficult to imagine Larry Bird ever being a “secret weapon,” but at the start of the 1977–78 college hoops season, that was an accurate description.
In an article about the increasing popularity and efficacy of the jump shot, Kent Hannon wrote that Bird was “so little known outside of Terre Haute, Ind. that he can only be called basketball's secret weapon.” Bird had stuffed the stat sheet in his first season playing for Indiana State, averaging 32.8 points per game and 13.3 rebounds. The Sycamores went 25–2 in the regular season but didn’t get an invitation to the NCAA tournament, so Bird’s skills remained the best-kept secret in college basketball.
The secret was out as the 1977–78 season got underway, though. SI ranked Indiana State as the No. 17 team in the country, even though it took the rest of the country longer to catch on. (ISU didn’t crack the AP Top 25 until after it beat No. 11 Purdue in its season opener.)
Once again, though, the Sycamores were left out of March Madness. They finished one game behind Creighton in the Missouri Valley Conference standings, so it was the Bluejays who got the bye to the championship game of the conference tournament. They beat Indiana State 54–52 in that game to claim the conference’s automatic NCAA tournament bid.
Check out more of SI’s archives and historic images at vault.si.com.
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