Man on a mission

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Jason Ilstrup appears to be a sensible guy. He served in the Peace Corps, graduated from law school and is general manager of HotelRED. So why, in the name of James Naismith, would he be on a seemingly endless quest to witness every NCAA Division I men’s basketball team play?

We’re not talking about visiting every college hoops venue in the country. That would be simple. No, this is more masochistic. This is about sitting through Portland vs. Northern Iowa in the middle of winter in a three-quarters-empty arena.

“Why am I doing this? That question comes up a lot,” Ilstrup, 39, says as he sifts through a thick, colorful pile of ticket stubs dating back to the early 2000s. “Because, for the most part, it’s pure fun.”

As he prepares to head to his 14th consecutive NCAA men’s basketball tournament, this year at Scottrade Center in St. Louis, he has 253 of the 351 NCAA Division I teams under his belt. That’s almost 75%.

Ilstrup’s “odyssey” as he calls it, began after a three-year stint in the Peace Corps, when he and his fellow volunteers decided to reunite every year by attending early rounds of the NCAA men’s basketball tournament together. After a few years, during which Ilstrup had seen a few dozen teams, he started adding them up.

“I wondered: Could I see every team? Is that possible?” he says. “That’s how the next phase of my life began.”

He and his very understanding wife, Dane County Assistant District Attorney Rachel Sattler, have no children, and his flexible work schedule makes traveling easy.

Because this is Ilstrup’s journey, he plays by his own set of rules. First, he tries not to travel more than five hours for a game; that means he’s become a regular at the Kohl Center, Milwaukee’s BMO Harris Bradley Center, the University of Minnesota’s Williams Arena and the University of Northern Iowa’s UNI-Dome.

Second, Ilstrup doesn’t need to stay for the entire game, especially if he has a long drive ahead of him. As a rule of thumb, he’ll sit through five official TV timeouts, which usually take him about four or five minutes into the second half. Time permitting, he’ll eat at local diners before the game and tune in to local sports talk radio programs on the way home. If he’s attending more than one game per trip — taking in an afternoon game and then driving a couple of hours to a night game is not uncommon on a weekend — he’ll stay in boutique hotels to see how HotelRED stacks up against the competition in other cities.

Ilstrup quickly realized that not all college basketball games are created equal. “The underbelly of college basketball is really different than what happens at the Kohl Center,” he says. “When you think of college basketball you think of these full arenas, like the Big Ten, Pac-12, SEC. Those games are almost always sold out. But the vast majority of games are like the University of Illinois at Chicago vs. Northern Kentucky, and there are 1,000 people there.”

The more teams he checks off his list, the more challenging it becomes for Ilstrup to see the rest. More extensive travel might be required, although he was able to see 10 new teams this season, including North Dakota and Maryland at the Kohl Center.

When Ilstrup began his odyssey, the number of Division I teams totaled around 300; today, there are more than 350, and Ilstrup suspects that number will grow — making it nearly impossible for him to predict when he will finally accomplish his mission. “I don’t think I’ll ever be finished,” he says with a laugh.

Number of NCAA Division I men’s basketball teams: 351

Number of teams Ilstrup has seen play live: 253

Worst game Ilstrup has witnessed: Stetson at Marquette at the BMO Harris Bradley Center, Jan. 27, 2016

Ilstrup’s least-favorite arena: UCLA’s Pauley Pavilion (prior to its 2010 renovation)

Holy grail venues still on Ilstrup’s must-see list: The Palestra in Philadelphia and Duke University’s Cameron Indoor Stadium

Estimated amount of money spent on travel and tickets: $10,000