Not as much excitement for Miami subregional — so far

It’s not exactly a ghost town, but there is less excitement around this NCAA subregional in Miami than any I’ve been to in the last 15 years. And I’ve been to more than a dozen NCAA subregionals and regionals during that time.
A lot of it is because of the economy, which has hit south Florida as bad as anywhere in the country. Some of it may because of the lack of local teams among the eight teams here.
At Thursday’s open practice sessions, which are free to the public, there were just a handful of fans present, especially at the Utah practice. I found a lone Ute fan from Fort Lauderdale, sitting on one side and a women with a couple of kids in Ute gear nearby.
Most arenas for NCAA tournaments have been sold out for the last several years. But I’ll be interested to see how many people show up for tomorrow’s games. Already there are large black curtains covering the seats at the upper decks of each end of the arena as well as several seats on the sides up high. I’m estimating about 5,000 seats are covered.
We’ll find out tomorrow.