Clearly, I'm staying in the safe part of town.

A photo posted by @mikecasazza on Mar 16, 2016 at 4:07pm PDT

When you travel a lot and spend an inordinate amount of time in confined spaces with the same people again and again, you make friends. And you find other people can’t stand. But the former is more common than the latter, because you’re sharing experiences and looking for a chance to blow off steam, and you tend to flock together.

The NCAA tournament experience is thusly unique, because you’re going to cities you (probably) haven’t been to or spent a lot of time in before, and you want to make sure you’re around people you know and not alone in what’s a pretty fun time. I like to stay in Brooklyn whenever we travel to New York City. The rate for the media hotel here was outrageous. I had a familiar hotel in mind, and the rate was employer-friendly, so a bunch of us are staying at the same hotel.

I won’t name names, but one person was a little concerned about the 10-minute walk to and from the Barclays Center. I believe this will put this person’s mind at ease. (Aside: I was a point man for Cleveland last year, but let me tell you, a fencing center in Cleveland means something totally different.)