Jason Heggemeyer is in his 16th year overseeing ticketing at Illinois and he’s not sure he’s seen anything quite like this.
The circumstances are extraordinary. To begin with, the Illini are a No. 1 seed in the NCAA men’s basketball tournament and Big Ten tournament champions and have won seven straight games. They are the second-closest team in proximity to Indianapolis, the central hub of this year’s bubble-style tournament. Yet, because they are opening their tournament run in the smallest of the six venues the NCAA is using and due to COVID-19 capacity reductions, they have almost no tickets for fans.