COLUMBIA — The 2017 men’s NCAA tournament games being pulled from Greensboro, N.C., won’t come to the Palmetto State capital, and not because of any issues with the city or Colonial Life Arena. The reason USC and Columbia pulled out of the running seemed a curious one: a lack of full-service hotel rooms available for the event.
According to USC athletic director Ray Tanner, “the short turnaround time” for cities bidding for the 2017 first and second rounds — yanked from the Old North State by the NCAA just last week — made it hard for the university and the city to find enough hotel rooms to meet NCAA guidelines.