Brooks Downing, the Kentucky-based organizer of Saturday’s Lone Star Shootout, had a pretty good thing on paper.
He had Arizona playing Texas A&M, while Texas and Arkansas followed. A Sweet 16 quality event, all at an NBA arena smack in downtown Houston.
Except it was only December. And the Texans vying for the NFL playoffs, tens of thousands of people were to attend the weekend’s high school football championships and the Houston Cougars were playing in the Las Vegas Bowl.
So only about 5,000-6,000 people showed up at the 19,000-seat Toyota Center, where the upper deck sections were curtained off and the lower deck sections were less than half full.
“It’s the nature of the beast in Texas,” Downing said.
Maybe he’ll have better luck next year. Arizona agreed to play in the Houston event contingent on getting A&M to go back to Phoenix next season, so Downing is trying to create another doubleheader along with that rematch.
One possibility for the other game is Grand Canyon, if Downing can find a suitable opponent also willing to play in Phoenix.
