Does anyone know how they determine the section for each team.I am in section 124 which is almost behind the basket.Anyone else in that section and not real happy about the location?
Things could be different now, but Ken Kavanagh told me about 15+ years ago that the MVC has a pretty good idea of how many tickets each school might sell, and they assign sections to each school, favoring the schools that sell more tickets, and maybe those schools that complain more about their location the previous year. Schools can ask for more tickets than initially assigned, if they need them, which probably explains why Bradley's section has expanded around the corner to include Section 124 (see map below). Note that no other school has as many sections as Bradley, and none of the other schools' sections extend around into the "end zone".
The people who bought all-session tickets and those who reserved their single-game tickets early got the better locations. Fans who bought later, were more likely to get the ones farther into the corner and end zone.
Here is a suggestion... Once the game is starting, simply get up and move around to a better seat location. There will be a lot of open seats in other sections, as long as you avoid sections like Bradley's and Northern Iowa's. Those will be pretty full. Other teams' sections that have already been eliminated, or the teams' sections that played earlier in the Friday afternoon session will have a lot of open seats. The sponsors' sections also are never full. A lot of fans do this.
Note that teams like Belmont, UIC and Valparaiso, who draw few fans and whose fans don't travel well, have large sections assigned to them. There will be a lot of good open seats in those sections. I also expect the Missouri State section to be pretty open, too.
For many years, the ushers used to police the sections aggressively and kick people out if they didn't have the correct tickets. But for the last 8-10 years, they stopped doing that, and as long as you move if the true seat owner shows up, the ushers don't seem to care where you sit. In fact, I think the tournament people would rather have the side-court sections appear to be mostly full for the TV broadcast.