Student Tickets Available For Sweet 16

Looking for tickets to see Duke in the Sweet 16 for the first time since 2006? You're much better off if you're still a student at Duke.

Tickets for one game are going, at a minimum, for $166 on StubHub, but Duke students just received an e-mail from the Duke Athletics ticket office offering tickets to all three games for $160. The pertinent parts of the e-mail:

The student lottery for tickets to the Sweet Sixteen of the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament will be held on Monday, March 23, 2009 from 10 AM - 4 PM at the ticket office in Cameron Indoor Stadium.  To enter the lottery, please go to the ticket office during these hours and:

1. Present your DukeCard.
2. Present a check written to DUAA for $160 (this covers all three regional games).
3. Sign the lottery rules form.

If you are successful in the lottery, you will claim your tickets by presenting your DukeCard at the TD Banknorth Garden in Boston, MA, on Thursday, March 26, 1 1/2 hours before the first game. This lottery is only for current Duke students.  Students who are successful in the lottery may NOT transfer their ticket to anyone else.

It's only slightly more expensive to get up to Boston. The cheapest airfare—leaving from RDU Thursday morning and coming back Sunday morning, assume a Blue Devil win in the Elite 8—is $221 from American Airlines.

If you're plan is to roadtrip it the 700 miles from Durham to Boston, the travel fees are even more marginal. The  price of a gallon of regular, unleaded gas is hovering around $1.90 this week, and assuming you're driving a car that gets around 20 miles per gallon, that's only about $120 to get back and forth. Well worth the price to see Duke make the Final Four, but if the Blue Devils lose, that's a long ride home.