Courtesy on Nick Eatman/Lone Star Conference

The Lone Star Conference basketball tournament was a huge success over the weekend in Bartlesville, Okla.

Both the men's and women's championships were claimed by No. 1 seeds, but there were plenty of upsets and exciting games along the way to provide a true March-Madness feel.

The 2008 tournament marked the first of a three-year stay in Bartlesville as the Bartlesville Sports Commission has agreed to serve as the host agency through 2010.  The LSC is used a predetermined tournament site for the first time in more than a decade, and Bartlesville's Bruin Field House was the first host facility in a truly neutral location.

LSC Commissioner Stan Wagnon took a few moments to recap the exciting weekend of basketball:

Looking back, what is your overall assessment of this year's tournament here in Bartlesville?

Wagnon: Oh, it was awesome. I think it was a huge success. I don't think there's any doubt about it. Every person we came across, whether it was somebody in the local community or someone from one of our institutions who have traveled in, whether it was a fan, player or coach, everyone had positive things to say. I don't think it could've gone any better for the first time we did it. I'm confident we can do some things to make it even better next time. But I was awfully pleased with the first time.

You don't have to see financial numbers to know this tournament was a success?

Wagnon: It's not about money and it's really not about how many people were in the stands. It's more about the student-athletes and coaches and making sure they have a championship experience. I think everyone that was here would tell you that they had a first-class championship experience. Do we want this to be successful financially, absolutely. The Bartlesville Sports Commission has made a significant investment in us, so we want to be a good partner. We want to bring a lot of people into their community and in return make a big economic impact. Certainly, we want to play in front of a full house. That is one of our goals, but I think it's important to know our first goal was to improve the championship experience and I think we've succeeded at that.

When you first came to Bartlesville, could you ever imagine this city could host it as well as it did?

Wagnon: Well, yes and no. the very first time I came up here, I didn't know a whole lot about Bartlesville, from the very moment I arrived on the first visit - I came by myself about a year ago - I knew we were on to something special. I knew we were headed in the right direction with these folks. I've gained a lot of confidence each and every time we've talked to them and they made me proud this week. They made themselves proud, too.

How long is the list of people that helped make this work?

Wagnon: It's a huge list. If you look just on the conference staff - me, Jay (Poerner) and Melanie (Robotham) worked non-stop on this thing for a year. Then, if you throw in the promotional efforts and the support and the volunteer staffing that our member institutions provided, they were trying to help get the word out and get everyone excited about this tournament on their own campuses for a couple of months now. Then you come up here on this side of it, they had the 13-member board of directors for the Bartlesville Sports Commission, plus 29 different volunteer committee heads working on our tournament. They had over 200 volunteers show up on Sunday to start the week. There is no question it was a huge undertaking and a lot of people had a hand in it. Certainly Bob Pomeroy and Tim Bart, who served as co-chairmen of the tournament, are two that deserve recognition for their leadership and coordination locally, but there are so many names of Bartlesville folks who have helped that I know I'd leave out somebody if I were to start listing them. That's a good thing any time you have that kind of support, and that's what it takes to run this good of a tournament.

What was your favorite part of this whole thing?

Wagnon: My favorite part was the interaction between our players and fans and coaches and the local community. The players had a chance to be recognized in front of their peers on Tuesday. We didn't just leave it at that - there were also 200 people from the local community that came out to show their support and get to know the student athletes. We followed that up with community engagement activities - our men's players got to know the children and our women's players got to know and interact with some of the special-needs students. Then we had a tailgate party where anyone and everyone could come and be a part of the fun. I think the interaction between our people and the local community was the best part.

What are some of the things you already know you want to improve for next year?

Wagnon: Well, I think the thing right now is we've worked for a year to know the nuts and bolts were in order. We wanted to make sure we could get up here and run a successful tournament and not have any glitches with the games or the facilities. Now we know what we're doing and know we can pull it off. What we can do now is concentrate on the auxiliary things - the things outside of this to continue to add on to this where it truly is an experience and more than just basketball games.

You had a lot of close game this weekend. Did you expect this?

Wagnon: I knew we were going to have a great tournament because I know we have great teams. I've been telling people up here about the quality product and they're going to be blown away when they see how good the basketball is. I'm so proud of our teams for proving that right. When I saw the bracket come out on the men's side, I was just tickled because I knew those four quarterfinal match-ups were going to be outstanding. I could've never dreamed that we would've started with a double-overtime game and then have the best team in the tournament get knocked off by arguably the biggest underdogs in the tournament. I don't think we could've asked for anything better from the basketball side of things. The teams really played their guts out and put on a show.

What does it say when a fourth-seed like A&M-Commerce gets all the way to finals and comes up short of winning the whole tournament?

Wagnon: I think it showed that any of the eight teams that get here can win it. And I'll tell you this - we had two or three teams sitting at home that didn't get to come to the tournament that could've won it. It's just how good the basketball is and how even it is. But I really thought the run that A&M-Commerce made added a lot of spirit to the event. When they knocked off West Texas A&M and then again when they beat Abilene Christian, they were getting the crowd into it. It was a little March Madness, it was fun.

Are you counting down the days to get back or are you can relax a little?

Wagnon: Yeah, we'll be here again in about 51 weeks from now. So I'm looking forward to it.