HOUSTON — The banners are up. The plans are coming together and with just one week until Final Four festivities begin, it's a race to the finish line for the NCAA.
Crews will start installing the official court for the NCAA's Men’s Final Four at NRG Stadium.
KHOU 11 News were the very first ones inside NRG Stadium Friday morning to show fans some of that process live. Watch the video here or in the player above.
NRG Stadium echoed with the sound of construction seven years ago. Workers laying down the court for the 2016 NCAA Men’s Final Four Championship.
Now, seven years later, they'll put in a brand-new court with a fresh coat of paint built just for this one event.
The senior vice president of basketball for the NCAA told KHOU 11 News it's a big undertaking especially since the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo just wrapped up on Sunday.
"As rodeo is moving out, we are moving into the venue and fortunately the venue staff does such a phenomenal job there, it will be well coordinated,” Dan Gavitt, NCAA's senior vice president of men's basketball, said. “But it will be a bit of a fire drill moving the rodeo equipment and the like out and getting the seating system in for the men's final four."
Workers will lay down 381 floor panels, each weighing 160 pounds.
The finished product: the court where the NCAA will host the national semi-finals Saturday, April 1 and crown its next national champion on Monday night, April 3.
The court assembly will take about four hours.
The first event that fans can come to will be here at NRG Stadium on Friday morning.
“That is a chance to come to the stadium, for free, see the court, see the Final Four teams in their open practices. You can see an all-star game and enjoy lots of giveaways. That’s from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Even parking is free,” Carla Gomez, with the NCAA Men’s Final Four Local Organizing Committee, said.