For the third and final game of my trip to Louisiana (and
what would ultimately be my final game, and the teams’ final game as well due
to the Coronavirus craziness), I visited Devlin Fieldhouse on the campus of
Tulane University for Arena #170, which featured an American Athletic
Conference (AAC) contest between the Tulane Green Wave and the Connecticut
Huskies. Similar to my visit to East
Carolina the weekend prior, it was very important for me to get a visit to
Tulane checked off this season before UConn left the AAC to return to the Big
East. Driving to the Tulane campus from
near the airport, I was quite surprised the residential nature of the
neighborhoods I was driving through and how narrow the streets and buildings
were along the way. As I got to campus
somewhat early, I took some time to walk around since I’m not used to having
70-degree weather for my college basketball trips. Tulane’s campus is quite a blend of modern
and historic architecture and the students were out in force on this Sunday
afternoon enjoying the weather by studying outside or playing some baseball in
the park across from the commons building.
Devlin Fieldhouse is a great example of that blend of modern
and historic architecture on campus as the Fieldhouse has been there for
decades, but it’s pretty clear both the outside and inside of the building has
been renovated and upgraded fairly recently.
Walking into the building though, I was quite surprised how small the
concourse was and that the concourse doesn’t really go all the way around the
building. Basically, to navigate from
the front to the back of the building you either have to walk along the court
(which obviously isn’t allowed when the game is actually going on) or walk around
the top of the seating bowl itself.
Devlin Fieldhouse only holds like 4,000 people, which goes to show just
how little basketball support and tradition Tulane really has.
On this day, which was Senior Day for 3 of the Green Wave’s
players, there were probably no more than 2,000 people in the gym, and honestly
half of those folks were probably UConn supporters. One of the most unique things I’ve ever seen
though occurred on this Senior Day as UConn’s head coach, Dan Hurley, was
included in the Senior Day activities for one of Tulane’s players, Christion
Thompson. What I didn’t realize at the
time was that Thompson played his first 3 seasons at Rhode Island under coach
Dan Hurley. The comradery between Hurley
and Tulane coach, Ron Hunter, during the presentation was pretty fun and
inspiring to watch. Ron Hunter has been
one of my favorite coaches for years since he was at IUPUI, though he’s
probably most well known by others for his time at Georgia State where his
14-seed Panthers upset 3-seed Baylor in the NCAA tournament and he fell off his
stool in celebration after tearing his ACL celebrating a conference tourney
title the week before!
As the game started, Tulane came out playing well and
UConn not so well. As Tulane was the
worst team in the conference, I expected (and hoped) that UConn would have as
easy a time with the Green Wave as they did with the ECU Pirates the weekend
before. That would definitely not be the
case on this day as Tulane came to play and hung with the Huskies all afternoon
long. While UConn typically struggles on
offense for stretches at a time, their defense is usually their calling
card. On this day though, the Huskies
defense struggled to contain the guard play of the Green Wave, allowing a lot
of dribble penetration to the basket and leaving shooters open off those
drives. Tulane scored a very surprising
41 points in the first half and took a 2-point lead into the break. UConn came out of the break playing some
better defense, but also struggling more on offense to where they managed to
take the lead, but never really were able to build the lead to a comfortable
level. Tulane kept it close throughout
the second half and had their chances to take a lead late, but UConn ultimately
held on for a 80-76 win to finish 5th in the AAC and set up a
rematch with Tulane in the 5/12 game of the opening round of the AAC Tourney
that was ultimately cancelled due to Coronavirus. As such, UConn finished the season at 19-12
with a 10-8 record in the AAC while Tulane finished 12-18 overall and last in
the AAC at 4-14.
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| View of Devlin Fieldhouse from across the street |
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| Tulane has to have one of the best center court logos in all of college basketball |
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| Opening tip between the Green Wave and Huskies |
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| Isaiah Whaley from UConn pulling up for the short jumper |
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