When the final buzzer sounded Sunday afternoon at Bruin Fieldhouse, it didn’t just give Central Oklahoma another men’s championship.

      But it closed a chapter, not only for the basketball tournament in Bartlesville, but for a handful of schools that are leaving the Lone Star Conference.

      LSC Commissioner Stan Wagnon couldn’t have been more appreciative of the hard work from the city of Bartlesville and the sports commission and said the excitement of watching the conference and the city of Bartlesville form a partnership to create such an event is something he will always cherish.

      Wagnon also talked about this year’s event, moving the tournament to Allen, Texas for the next three years as well as the void left behind by the departing schools.

You’ve just wrapped up your fourth and final year here in Bartlesville for the LSC Championships. Would you say it’s a bittersweet feeling to see this come to an end?

Wagnon: No question it’s bittersweet. This is probably the best thing this conference has done to put this tournament together. Partnered with Bartlesville, it’s really re-defined the way we operate. The media in our conference are treated better; the student-athletes are treated better. The coaches have a better experience. The fans have more to look forward to. The bands and the cheerleaders are more involved. All of that is because of what we’ve put together here in Bartlesville the last four years. It’s bittersweet to see that end, but at the same time, we have laid the foundation and now it’s time to go and build on that in Allen.

Is it easier to leave Bartlesville knowing that it’s relatively a clean break with conference realignment forcing relocation of the tournament?

Wagnon: In a way that makes it easier because you’ve got a built-in reason. But the people in our conference have been so appreciative of the people in Bartlesville and the community and accepted us just like we were the biggest and best conference out there. They’ve helped us believe in ourselves. We’re very grateful for the way they’ve treated us.

You’ve always had a vision to put this tournament in one site, so can you talk about your gratitude towards Bartlesville for taking a chance on an event that had never occurred?

Wagnon: There’s no question. What we’ve done here – I think the most impressive thing about the four years, is not how good it is this year, but how good it was the very first year. Yeah, we’ve done things to tweak it and improve it to get better. But the most impressive part was that their sports commission had never hosted an event like this and for us as a conference had never run an event of this magnitude – we were able to work together and have it be that great from the start, it’s pretty special.

Wagnon: I think with the 11 schools we have remaining going forward in the conference, the average distance between Allen and Bartlesville is that Allen will be 191 miles closer to each campus – on average. That’s a big deal. The other thing, with Allen being located right next to Dallas, if we have one primary place where our alumni dwell, I think that’s it. I think it’s going to give us the opportunity to tap into another resource for fans and people to support the tournament. We’re going to have some opportunities to build some events around the tournament that we just can’t do here because there’s just not a natural tie between our Texas schools and northeast Oklahoma.

Before we move on to Allen, you had a pretty good tournament here in Bartlesville once again. Was this as competitive as we’ve ever had here?

Wagnon: Yeah, I think so. This tournament has been so balanced on the men’s and women’s side. There were four teams that walked away with the regular-season trophies but there were six or eight teams that could beat someone else. When you get all of that and pack it into one gym and play those games back-to-back, I think it sort of feeds off everything else. You see the first game and see how it goes down to the final seconds, and then your game does that. The whole tournament just feeds itself. I think the neutral court adds to that element. It does reflect how balanced and well-coached all of our teams are.

This year saw a first in that Texas Woman’s University won the LSC title, the school’s first ever of any kind.

Wagnon: Yeah, I’m proud of every team that gets to the championship game because it’s not easy to get there. But specifically with Texas Woman’s, the tournament they had and knowing the history of their program, not just in basketball but none of their programs had ever been on that stage. For them to come in here and defeat West Texas A&M, which is arguably the greatest women’s basketball program in the conference – for them to defeat Northeastern State, the highest-ranked team in the conference all year – and then to beat UCO, which has become a perennial power as well and a thorn in their side. TWU hadn’t beat them since 1995. For them to put that kind of week together here and make history for their institution was pretty special to see.

While the school year is not over, this does not close the chapter on two of your schools in basketball that will not be here next season in Northeastern State and Central Oklahoma. How will they be missed?

Wagnon: Anytime you have member schools leaving, you’re going to notice that they’re gone. I think it’s especially so in the sport of basketball with UCO and Northeastern. On the men’s and women’s side, those two institutions have had a big presence in what we’ve done. Central Oklahoma – their success in the early 1990’s really set us up to be a great conference in Division II basketball. We haven’t had much success prior to them getting hot in the early 90’s. Northeastern State has the only NCAA Division II men’s basketball national championship (for the conference), winning that in 2003. On the women’s side, both Randy Gipson and Guy Hardaker are just class acts and they work hard. Their teams are in every ballgame. They’ve just racked up win after win after win. Those two schools, especially in the sport of basketball, we’re going to notice that they’re gone because they have such great programs.

What are your thoughts about UCO’s men’s team winning the last championship here in Bartlesville before leaving for the MIAA?

Wagnon: Well this year has had a lot of changes and there’s been a lot of dialogue. There are probably some hard feelings here and there. But as far as I’m concerned, UCO has been in this conference for a great number of years and have had a lot of success in the postseason, they’re definitely part of the conference this year. So with them walking out of here with the trophy, they earned it. They’ve got a great men’s team, I’m proud of them and was happy to hand them the trophy.

Any final thoughts as you leave Bartlesville for possibly the last time?

Wagnon: I want to emphasize the reason we’ve been able to have so much success in Bartlesville is because of Bob Pomeroy and the Bartlesville Sports Commission and the hard-working attitude of the tournament directors like Dan Keleher, Kyle Reeder, Thad Friedman and Dan Gilliam and the help of the people here at Bartlesville high school in Tim Bart. Those guys will forever be friends of mine. I don’t know if we’ll have the chance to work together again, but I know we’ll get together because we’ve made some great relationships over the last four years and it’s been a pleasure for me to work with those guys.

In a lot of ways this has been our baby. We’ve rolled this thing out together and we’ve shaped it and formed it and we’re proud of it because we’ve been successful. It really has been a team effort and it really has been a partnership. We wanted to get in and partner with a community and we know the value of having a community support you. So it is emotional because we’ve had so much invested in it. But like anything in life, we go through one chapter to the next. This has been an awesome chapter. But we’re going to take what we’ve done here and use that as the foundation to build in Allen and hopefully make this thing bigger and better for the next three years.