Sacramento State’s men’s basketball team will host the Big Sky Conference Championship from The WELL if the Hornets finish the conference season in first place, according to Interim Athletics Director Bill Macriss.

Macriss said the school received word of the Big Sky’s decision to allow the Hornets an in-house option to host the tournament early Friday afternoon.

“We’ve been working for the last several weeks to find the best solution for our student-athletes and our fans,” Macriss said. “We’ve been working very closely with the conference office, looking at a number of places in a number of different areas, and just got the great news that they approved us to host the Big Sky men’s basketball tournament in The WELL if we were to win the regular season.”

Macriss said the decision came following approval from Big Sky Conference Commissioner Doug Fullerton and Senior Associate Commissioner Ron Loghry, who spent time vetting potential hosting sites for Sac State.

In his first trip to Sacramento on Feb. 4, Loghry was the one to suggest The WELL as a potential site to host the event, but the university didn’t believe it would be feasible for them to hold and had other venues in mind.

“Bill Macriss and I talked about utilizing The WELL, but he said there were too many activities on campus,” Loghry said. “But when the other sites didn’t work out, [Macriss] furthered his discussions with President Alexander Gonzalez to see if there was a way to make this function.”

On Feb. 19, Loghry toured the facility and met with Leslie Davis, executive director of Union WELL, Inc., Kate Smith, director of The WELL, and Todd Sebastian, The WELL’s assistant director of special events and informal recreation, where the university was able to satisfy all of the conference’s needs on their three-hour walkthrough.

“They were able to clear what we needed,” Loghry said. “I was really impressed with the way the tournament could operate in that facility, so we [the Big Sky commissioners] gave it the OK.”

The team with the best conference record in the 2014-15 season will earn the right to host the Big Sky Conference Championship, which is scheduled for March 12-14.

Until Friday, it was uncertain where Sac State would host the tournament should the team win the Big Sky regular-season title.

Sac State men’s basketball—a team that sits second in the Big Sky standings by a margin of half a game with four left to play—is contractually disallowed from hosting the tournament in the Hornets Nest, the team’s home gym, due to its seating capacity of just 1,012 and its small size, which cannot accommodate cameras necessary for television broadcasts.

Davis said the goal is to turn The WELL’s current recreational basketball space into a temporary tournament venue capable of seating 3,000 spectators. The university has to provide a minimum of 100 tickets per team in the eight-team tournament, which could take away 700 seats.

“We’re going to make it suitable, because we have to bring in all the equipment to do it,” Davis said. “So we’re going to be bringing in a basketball court, we’re going to be bringing in stands, we’re going to be bringing in locker rooms, because we don’t have enough to handle this type of an event. This building was never designed for this type of an event.”

Loghry said The WELL will build scaffolding behind the portable bleachers for television cameras, so the media can shoot from various angles, which was the decisive issue that ruled out the Nest as a venue.

The endeavor would be a joint effort between The WELL and Sac State’s athletic department with no outside source aiding the build-in, Davis said.

Davis added that The WELL would have to close its gym box and mat court facilities starting around March 8, the Sunday before the tournament, but the remaining facilities would operate as normal, even on the nights of the tournament.

Last season, Weber State paid a required costs total of $220,000 hosting the event, but were able to profit off of the tournament with a net share of $20,000. 

The upfront and and non-negotiable expenses the host university has to pay is $140,000, along with allowable hosting expenses (WSU’s was around $80,000), which vary from site-to-site, and a $30,000 hosting share. 

“We have not even begun to calculate the cost,” Davis said Friday. “We’re just in the beginning stages… this is a students’ facility and so the students need to have the money reimbursed to their services.”

Macriss said the ability to host the tournament from an on-campus venue is appealing to spectators and players alike.

“Obviously, we’re extremely happy that our student-athletes are going to be able to stay on campus and have the chance to compete in front of their fans and their friendly confines as they make a run for the NCAA tournament,” Macriss said.

Loghry and Macriss mentioned assistance from the community, as well as support from Gonzalez and Mayor Kevin Johnson, as key contributors to the athletic department’s success in finding an on-campus solution to the hosting debacle.

“It’s been an unbelievable show of support from so many people, and we’re so grateful for all of their efforts,” Macriss said.

The Hornets (11-3 in Big Sky) currently sit half a game behind the University of Eastern Washington (11-2 in Big Sky) in the conference standings. Sac State’s record is matched by the University of Montana.

With the final game of the Big Sky regular season slated for March 7, there is still no guarantee of which school will host the tournament.