It's nearly 200 miles from the nearest international airport, located in the fifth-least populous state in America. Its curb appeal -- outside new facilities on a sprawling athletic complex -- pales in comparison to the backdrop of many other major sporting venues. Yet against those odds, a basketball oasis has spawned out of Sioux Falls, South Dakota, where the Sanford Pentagon, a cozy environment with the backing of a major health system, has embraced COVID-19 protocols and emerged as a hotspot for hoops.
"The Pentagon was built to host pandemic basketball," Jesse Smith, vice president of operations for Sanford Sports, told CBS Sports. "We've got nine full-sized courts in our facility, we've got meeting spaces, we've got a film room. We can offer teams everything they need under one roof aside from the housing component. When you're talking about a controlled environment, that's huge."
There have been nearly two dozen games held at the Pentagon over the last month, including the men's and women's Crossover Classic. Among the teams to come through the venue include West Virginia and Memphis on the men's side, and South Carolina -- the top-ranked team in the sport -- on the women's side. On Saturday, when No. 1 Gonzaga takes on No. 3 Iowa at noon ET on CBS, it will become the first arena this season to have hosted the top-ranked team in men's and women's basketball.
This quaint venue, with its exposed wooden beams and retro feel reminiscent of a gym that could easily have been plucked straight out of Hoosiers, is no stranger to major sporting events. It's where the Miami Heat's G League team, Sioux Falls Skyforce, is housed. It's where regular-season and postseason college basketball games have been held in years past. And, famously, it was the site of Giannis Antetokounmpo's second-ever preseason game as a rookie in 2013. (He played 28 minutes that night but scored just 4 points, posting a plus/minus of -11 in a 9-point loss to the Minnesota Timberwolves.)
Despite that history, it'd still have been impossible to predict that inside the Pentagon, some of the most consequential college games of the season -- including Saturday's No. 1 Gonzaga vs. No. 3 Iowa showdown -- would take place. But supported by Sanford Health and guided by the counsel of Dr. Jeremy Cauwels, Sanford Health's Chief Medical Officer who also serves on the NCAA's COVID-19 advisory board, they've managed to earn the elusive trust of teams near and far in the middle of a global health crisis. The rewards of that trust continue to mount, culminating with Saturday's marquee matchup.
"We want to be the hub of basketball," Smith said. "Having the support of a major healthcare system like Sanford Health, which was the official testing partner of the PGA, helped us with testing. That has been extremely valuable. So having that machine behind us has put us into a different stratosphere, and when you're talking about getting high-level teams, there's an extra layer of comfort having the healthcare system be a part of it."
Protocols at Sanford are adopted and applied based on guidelines from the conferences whose teams travel to the Pentagon. This week, the Big Ten and its call for daily testing, are implemented because of Iowa's involvement. But officials within the sports complex have for months been prepping to meet this moment appropriately with their own care and safety measures, given health concerns and the desire to adequately accommodate teams under trying circumstances. So they studied what the NBA did in the Orlando bubble, they took pieces from other sports and they implemented them.
"The first three rows of stands are pushed backwards," Dr. Cauwels said. "It looks like a hockey rink. It's got the plexiglass around the stands, plexiglass around the scorer's table. Having both basketball and hockey here, I looked at it right away and thought, 'Other than we got the floor wrong, we just built a hockey rink.'"
There are specific protocols and safety measures in place, Smith said.
"We've got an advanced HVAC system that recirculates the air every 15 minutes," Smith said. "We have wrist scans, temperature checks for everyone that comes in. We tried to do everything the NBA was doing."
Now this tiny gym, with the capacity of just 3,250 and located in one of the smallest venues in the state, is hosting what will arguably be the biggest game of the men's college basketball season. Iowa comes into the weekend boasting the No. 1 offense in adjusted efficiency according to KenPom.com metrics; Gonzaga comes in at No. 2 in that same statistical category. Iowa comes in with a 6-0 record having just crushed Northern Illinois; The Zags also enter undefeated record (3-0) having spent the last two weeks on pause because of positive COVID-19 tests. In an unlikely but now unsurprising turn of events given Sanford's success hosting games in the pandemic, all eyes will be on the Pentagon because of the star-studded matchup involving two of the top-three teams, the number of NBA prospects involved -- and the No. 1 ranking in the sport that's on the line.
What the Pentagon lacks in size and stature it compensates for in critical areas that have only been elevated in importance in the time of a pandemic. It's no basketball bonanza in the Bahamas like the Battle 4 Atlantis' typical backdrop, to be sure, but it remains one of the biggest and best draws in the sport because of its stringent protocols and implementation, small-gym mystique, and continued success navigating tricky times.
"We don't have beaches and 80-degree weather, but we can give teams a unique and unforgettable and safe basketball experience," said Smith. "The teams that come are well-taken care of, they're well-fed; that's how we have to do it. We're in the middle of nowhere, so we have to do it this way."
