New league eyes Palestra for postseason tournament

Commissioner Mike Aresco and some staffers of the newly named American Athletic Conference were in Philadelphia on Tuesday, stopping at member school Temple, then touring the Palestra, a possible site for the postseason conference basketball tournament.

"We're definitely interested," Aresco said in a phone call from 30th Street Station after seeing the Palestra. "It's a revered place in college basketball. Given our druthers, we're looking for a smaller arena, more intimate, at least in the beginning. We're looking for electricity in the building. We want sellouts."

The Palestra is the only site the league is looking at in Philadelphia. Aresco said he hopes the inaugural site is picked in the next month. He mentioned Hartford, Cincinnati, Memphis, and Tampa as other possible sites. The plan is to have the league rotate sites in its early years.

"That can change," Aresco said. "Let's say we go to a place like the Palestra and have an incredible year and everybody loves it, we'd talk about another year. But right now the plan is to rotate it."

It's safe to say all the sites have their pros and cons for this "reinvented" league, as Aresco calls it. The Palestra has his full attention. The last time the Palestra hosted a conference tournament was in 1995, when the Atlantic Ten played there for the last time. It still has hosted more NCAA games than any other venue in the nation, although none since 1984. The first NCAA tournament game was played there in 1939.

"It's truly one of the cradles of basketball," Aresco said. "It's something you wouldn't want to overlook."