INDIANAPOLIS -- The last time Indianapolis hosted an NCAA Men’s Final Four Basketball Championship was in the spring of 2021, inside a virtual COVID bubble that saw the entire March Madness Tournament played in Indiana but before sparse crowds as America struggled to emerge from a pandemic lockdown.

”So we needed this,” remembered Andy Mallon, executive director of the Capital Improvement Board. “As a community, as an industry, as a country, needed the Final Four. This was the line in the sand at the time. Like, if we don’t have the Final Four after months and months of doing these one-offs…where does it end? Maybe it doesn’t end.”

The audience of business leaders, sponsors and volunteers attending the Final Four Tip-Off at Indiana Roof Ballroom Tuesday morning was reminded not only of t

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