The O’Reilly Auto Parts Puerto Rico Tip-Off tournament is in effect for the second year in a row, giving us college hoops fans something to watch during the daytime. They have some strong teams participating in the tournament, including Memphis, Xavier, USC, and Virginia Tech. Really, as far as non-conference tourneys go, they have an impressive stable of teams. One problem though: the games are played in Puerto Rico! As you’ll notice, there was one common theme with the four games played in the first day of the tournament — no fans showed up. Just check out the crowd shot pictured above from the Seton Hall/USC game and the other pictures below from every other game. The crowd for each game is the same, listed at 3,217. I guess about 3,200 came dressed as blue chairs. They better figure out some way to get fans down there otherwise it hardly seems like putting on an event where you’re shipping eight teams out of the country, not to mention all the TV crews. And you can’t blame ticket prices either; all day sessions start at $10 and a pass for the entire tournament goes for $99 — not a bad deal at all. I bet those players had better crowds in middle school.
