Tobacco Road Is Front And Center Of March Madness With 3 Women's Sites And Men's Site In Area

Oregon coach Kelly Graves was excited when he saw his team was headed to Duke to play in the NCAA Tournament.

The Ducks had success there a few years back when they played in the 2017 NCAA Tournament , advancing also as a 10-seed. But more importantly, it meant a chance for his family to watch both the Ducks play and the Florida men's team where his son, Will, is a graduate assistant coach.

The Gators are playing their first-round game in Raleigh, North Carolina, about 30 minutes from Cameron Indoor Stadium where Oregon will face Vanderbilt on Friday. The Graves family got together Thursday night at a hotel. It will be tough for them to cheer everyone on Friday as Oregon's game tips off 80 minutes before Florida so going to both games is nearly impossible.

"Every family has those trips or memories that are just different," Graves said. "Our first trip to Durham was one of those and now to be back it brings up those memories again even if it's under different circumstance. My boys were so pumped to be at Cameron before and now we're back."

Tobacco Road is the center of the NCAA Tournament this week with three women's first-round sites at Duke , North Carolina and N.C. State. There's also the men's first-round games being played at N.C. State as well. In all, there's 21 men's and women's teams in the area for the games. No city comes close to that, including Los Angeles which has both UCLA and Southern Cal hosting first-round women's sites.