CHARLOTTE — Last week, for the first time since 2005, the Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association played its annual basketball tournament somewhere other than Charlotte. Even so, Charlotte was well represented.
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The conference of historically black colleges and universities, known as the CIAA, wrapped up its men’s and women’s basketball tournaments in Baltimore on Feb. 26. Mayor Vi Lyles, City Manager Marcus Jones, Assistant City Manager Tracy Dodson, Charlotte Regional Visitors Authority CEO Tom Murray, and City Councilman Malcolm Graham all attended portions of the tournament — the first one played since the CIAA wrapped up a 15-year run here in 2020.
In January 2019, the CIAA board of directors, made up of member school presidents, selected Baltimore to host the tournament for three years beginning in 2021. Charlotte and Norfolk, Virginia, were finalists. The conference canceled the tournament last year due to the Covid-19 pandemic; the 2020 tournament was completed in Charlotte two weeks before Covid was declared a pandemic and spectator events were shuttered.
Baltimore has the tournament for at least one more year. It’s unclear whether the CIAA is ready to consider an extension or prefers to go through a formal bidding process. That news will likely emerge soon as the conference looks ahead to 2023 and beyond.
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Graham, a council Democrat who leads the city’s economic development committee, told CBJ that Charlotte is likely to make a pitch to bring back the CIAA Tournament.
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