Arena #170: Devlin Fieldhouse - Tulane vs. Connecticut

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 5^th 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.

View of Devlin Fieldhouse from across the street

Tulane has to have one of the best center court logos in all of college basketball

Opening tip between the Green Wave and Huskies

Isaiah Whaley from UConn pulling up for the short jumper

Arena #166: Williams Arena at Minges Coliseum - East Carolina vs. Connecticut

Given that I have 10 or less venues left in Mission 351 that are within driving distance for me, I had to plan more flyaway trips this season than ever before.  On this weekend, it was a fairly short flight over to North Carolina for Saturday doubleheader starting at Arena #166, Williams Arena at Minges Coliseum, on the campus of East Carolina University (ECU) in Greenville, NC.  I have to admit a visit to ECU was pretty low on my list of schools in North Carolina, but it became much more important to make this stop this season when Connecticut announced they were leaving The American and returning to the Big East.  As such, the schedule worked out perfect when UConn was slotted to play the ECU Pirates on a late February Saturday afternoon.

Driving up to the arena, which is located right next to the school’s football stadium, gave me hope that the building was going to be nicer than I had in my mind not having really seen any ECU games on TV in the past.  After walking in, I quickly found out that wasn’t really the case as the concourses were small and cramped and the seating bowl relatively old.  Most impressive, however, was the fact that the concession stands sold two different sizes of souvenir cups…one of the three key items I try to collect from every game I attend and the one item that is usually not present in smaller, more obscure venues like ECU.  Williams Arena holds probably 8,000 folks or so and it was maybe half full at best on this day.  I can’t say I was surprised by the small turnout given UConn and ECU aren’t exactly natural rivals, nor do they have recent basketball pedigrees that are anywhere near comparable.  I was impressed, however, how many UConn fans there were in the building, which was great to see given UConn was having a little less success this season than hoped.

On this day, though, UConn would give one of their best performances in recent memory, especially on the road.  The Huskies got off to a quick start building a double-digit lead behind some surprisingly hot 3-point shooting and solid defense on ECU’s best player, Sophomore Jayden Gardner.  UConn held the lead throughout the first half and took a 12-point lead into the break.  There were a few runs back and forth where ECU managed to trim the lead early in the second half, but UConn punched back and stemmed the tide in those runs quite well for being on the road.  Ultimately, the Huskies took a 84-63 win home on this day to get back to .500 in the conference for the first time this season led by a big 27-point outing from Senior guard Christian Vital and a 19-point performance from breakout Freshman guard James Bouknight.

Outside view of Minges Coliseum in Greenville, NC

Inside Williams Arena at Minges Coliseum

Opening tip between the Pirates and Huskies

Some pick and roll action from UConn's Josh Carlton and James Bouknight

Arena #147: Tudor Fieldhouse - Houston vs. Rice

For our last stop in Texas, it was off to Houston for a crosstown rivalry game between the Houston Cougars and Rice Owls from Arena #147, Tudor Fieldhouse, on the campus of Rice University.  This game is a classic intra-city matchup between a public university (Houston) and a private university (Rice).  In this case, Houston has been the significantly more relevant team on the hardwood for the last few years and was certainly the favorite in this game coming off a Sweet 16 appearance in the prior year.  Honestly, I wasn’t sure what to expect from this game because even though Rice came into the matchup with only 1 loss, I haven’t heard anything about Rice being any good at basketball in a long time.  Tudor Fieldhouse is well designed to hold a crowd of around 5,000, which on this day consisted of probably 70% Houston fans who were certainly boisterous when the Cougars were rolling.  However, the Owls came out hot early and continued to be hot throughout the first 30+ minutes of the game with a barrage of 3s and some solid defense.  It definitely looked like an upset was in the offing, however, the Cougars would have none of it down the stretch getting some timely buckets and defensive stops in pulling out a 97-89 victory.

Main entrance to Tudor Fieldhouse

Inside Tudor Fieldhouse pregame 

Opening tip between the Owls and Cougars

Houston going in for a first half dunk

Arena #137: FedEx Forum - Memphis vs. Connecticut

For the final game of the weekend, it was back to Tennessee for an American Athletic Conference matchup between the Memphis Tigers and the Connecticut Huskies.  As a UConn fan, I’ve been waiting to go to this game ever since UConn was left in the AAC after the dissolution of the old Big East through realignment, but it seemed like the conference always scheduled this game on a weeknight in mid-January that would make it impossible for me to attend.  It would figure that finally when the game falls on a weekend, it’s when UConn has been pretty bad for the last few years and Memphis is a bit down on its luck as well.  However, with the hirings of Dan Hurley at UConn and Memphis St. alum, Penny Hardaway, at Memphis, this game is likely to be good in a couple years (summer update: will be interesting to see if these matchups continue with UConn having announced its return to the Big East in 2020).  Since Memphis is playing its games in the FedEx Forum it shares with the NBA’s Grizzlies, I expected a nice and modern facility and for the most part the venue didn’t disappoint.  The arena has a prime location along Memphis’s world-famous Beale St. allowing for a multitude of pregame activities to be available within walking distance of the arena.  The seating bowl itself doesn’t feel as spread out as a typical professional sports facility either, which is likely helped by the main tenants of the arena both being basketball programs versus when an arena has to be designed with hockey in mind as well.  We had some pretty good lower level corner seats for the game, which provided decent sightlines while also not being buried too far in the corner.  The product on the court turned out to be about what I expected from both teams as UConn had too many stretches throughout the contest where they struggled to put the ball in the basket, which allowed Memphis to build a 7-10 point lead on a regular basis that they would never relinquish in defending their homecourt on this Sunday afternoon.

The FedEx Forum - prime location right on famous Beale St. in Memphis

Yeah we were there a bit early for tip...

Hey what happened to 2008?? ;)

Memphis with the hook shot in the lane over UConn's Tyler Polley

Sidney Wilson of UConn attempting a runner in the second half

Arena #132: Stuart C. Siegel Center - Virginia Commonwealth vs. Wichita St.

For the 11^th and final game of this trip, we drove another couple hours east in the state of Virginia to Richmond for a non-conference matchup between 2 of the premier mid-major programs of the last decade, the Virginia Commonwealth (VCU) Rams and the Wichita St. Shockers at the Siegel Center on the VCU campus.  Now I’ve been a fan of both of these programs for years due to their coaches (Gregg Marshall at Wichita St. due to his time at Winthrop as discussed a few games back) and former VCU coach Shaka Smart having attended the same high school as I did in Oregon, Wisconsin a couple years earlier than me.  Based on the other experiences on this trip, I didn’t have much of an expectation for an atmosphere at this game either given it was scheduled three days before Christmas with students on break, but the locals definitely filled up the building for this one, which was great to see.  The Siegel Center is a perfectly sized venue for a school like VCU holding 7-8,000 people so there were few bad seats in the house (though the corner we were stuck in seemed to be one of those few bad seats…).  The school prominently displays its NCAA participation and championship banners on the walls throughout the arena and has its 2011 improbable Final Four appearance banner hanging right at midcourt.  For the game itself, this was certainly not one of the finest displays of basketball I’ve seen on either end of the court.  The first half was competitive, but the offenses both struggled at times to find the basket, though the Rams were a little better in the half to take a 3 point lead to the break.  After the half, however, VCU exerted more of its will on the Shockers and the Shockers couldn’t throw the ball in the ocean for numerous stretches in the half, scoring only 20 points for the entire 20 minute period, leading to a comfortable win for the Rams in the end.

Impressive facade of the Stuart C. Siegel Center in Richmond, VA

Love the creativity with VCU spelled out in yellow seats on one side and Rams on the other

Getting this matchup between the Rams and the Shockers underway

VCU looking to score in the post over the interior presence of the Shockers

2017 PK80 - Phil Knight Invitational

When a one-off, 16 team college basketball extravaganza was announced back in 2015 for Thanksgiving weekend 2017, I knew right then what my holiday plans would be for this year.  Having the opportunity to see both of my teams (UConn and Gonzaga) in the same "tournament" for the 2nd time in 3 years was definitely going to be a can't miss event.

The ability to have 2 tournaments running simultaneously in buildings a few hundred yards from each other was a perfect setup for the event in that it allowed me to catch 15 games over the course of the 3 days(including 7 of the 8 games on Day 1).  ESPN did manage to botch scheduling on Day 2 making the semifinal matchups overlap with each other (when both my teams were playing in them no less!), but other than that the coordination of the event was pretty strong.

Can't say I was thrilled having to watch Duke and Michigan St. win their respective brackets, but it was definitely a memorable event over a memorable weekend honoring the man behind Nike, Mr. Phil Knight.

Moda Center glowing in a clear Portland evening

The man being honored with PK80 - Mr. Phil Knight

Outside the Veterans Memorial Coliseum - the 2nd building hosting PK80 games all weekend long

Jalen Adams (UConn) with the jumper in a PK80 quarterfinal matchup with Oregon

Upstairs vantage point inside the Veterans Memorial Coliseum during the PK80

Josh Perkins (Gonzaga) pulls up for 3 against Ohio St. in a PK80 quarterfinal