Police ordered Cox Arena in San Diego to be evacuated just hours prior to an opening round NCAA basketball tournament game was to be played there.
The building was almost empty at the time of the evacuation. It was prompted when a bomb sniffing dog detected trouble at a hot dog stand.
A bomb-sniffing dog noticed something in a hot dog cart,' explained Dennis Beresford, a spokesman for the San Diego State University. 'They got a hit on something that was in the cart itself.'
The bomb squad was called in to investigate. According to San Diego Fire Department spokesman Maurice Luque, the bomb squad was using a remote controlled robot to examine the suspicious item on top of the hot dog cart.
The players for Marquette University and the University of Alabama, who were scheduled to tip off at 11:40 AM local time, were not yet in the arena when the evacuation was ordered.
Four NCAA tournament games are scheduled at the Cox Arena on Thursday. It has yet to be determined if they will be played as scheduled.
