Arena #153 - Greensboro Coliseum: North Carolina-Greensboro vs. Mercer

After spending the afternoon at VMI, I headed another 3 hours south to Greensboro, NC for a nightcap at the Greensboro Coliseum for Arena #153.  This game featured a Southern Conference matchup between the UNC-Greensboro Spartans and the Mercer Bears.  The Greensboro Coliseum is a famous venue for college basketball hosting numerous Atlantic Coast Conference and NCAA tournaments and even serves as the home of the ACC Hall of Champions.  It definitely has the look and feel of a major conference venue, but on a regular basis serves as the home court for the UNC-Greensboro men’s basketball team.  Maybe this makes sense when the students are in session, but on this day I spent the majority of the game trying to understand why this game was being played in the Coliseum with a capacity of over 20,000 people when there were maybe 3,000-4,000 folks in attendance.  It was obvious they weren’t expecting much for attendance either when there was only 1 concession stand open on each end of the arena.  The Spartans absolutely dominated the first half of this game taking an 18 point lead into the break before Mercer turned around and dominated the first 10+ minutes of the second half in cutting that 18 point lead down to 4.  The game stayed tight throughout the remainder of the game, but UNC-Greensboro never ended up giving up the lead and eventually took home a 9-point conference win.

Exterior view of the Greensboro Coliseum

Not exactly a robust crowd in the cavernous Greensboro Coliseum for this contest

Pregame video and introductions for the home Spartans

UNCG with the runner as they try to maintain their lead in the second half