It wasn’t as easy as the city telling the NCAA that it wanted to host again. The process took facilities, planning and community support.

The bid cycle for hosting NCAA Tournament events held between 2016 and 2018 began in May 2014. It was three years after the men’s basketball event stopped by Tulsa, but the thought process for attempting to bring the event back to Tulsa never slowed.

The BOK Center was a game-changer. Before 2011, the last NCAA Tournament games in Tulsa were in 1985 and held at the Mabee Center at Oral Roberts University.

“We didn’t have the arena and that was really our first opportunity to get back into the NCAA process,” Hoyt said. “It just keeps getting better. We have Big 12 wrestling championships next year (March 4-5), with the NCAA a week later. It’s going to be a really, really busy spring for us next year.

“It’s really cool because one of our goals when I came here six years ago was to get NCAA basketball back and become a Big 12 championship city. We’re doing that and that’s the proof in the pudding that Tulsa can support and will support collegiate athletics.”

In August 2014, the Tulsa Sports Commission submitted its bid to host games during the 2017 postseason. It learned three months later that it was selected.