Arena #106: Hawkins Arena - Mercer vs. East Tennessee St.

Final stop of this year's post-Christmas trip to the Southeast took us to Macon, GA for another Southern Conference matchup, this time between the Mercer Bears and the East Tennessee St. Buccaneers.  Once again, this seemed to be a fairly affluent, southern campus, but I also liked how this arena had a bit of an atrium with historic moments in program history, including the massive upset of Duke in the NCAA tournament in 2014.  Surprisingly, the game was reasonably well attended for a Sunday afternoon contest on New Year's Eve though the crowd thinned out into the second half as ETSU controlled this contest throughout.

Outside of Hawkins Arena on Gameday...including a giant inflatable bear!

Memories from the biggest win in program history!

Pregame entrance for the team and cheerleaders

ETSU taking it strong to the hoop

Arena #99: McCamish Pavilion - Georgia Tech vs. Wright St.

The nightcap of the second consecutive doubleheader day of games brought me to downtown Atlanta and the campus of Georgia Tech for Arena #99 and a fairly nondescript matchup between the Yellow Jackets and the Wright State Raiders.  As expected, the building was quite nice having been just constructed within the last few years.  However, the crowd support certainly left something to be desired, especially being in downtown ATL and having just come from Athens where probably close to 10,000 people showed up for a 1 pm tip.  In the end though, the game ended up being pretty competitive and even produced an upset as Wright St. came away with the win in a high-scoring affair.

Clean court design and setup inside the McCamish Pavilion

Opening tip between the Yellow Jackets and the Raiders

Jamie Luckie...ugh

Wright St with the flush!

Arena #98: Stegeman Coliseum - Georgia vs. Temple

Day 2 of this trip to the Southeast brought about another doubleheader, this time in Georgia, starting in Athens for an afternoon tilt between the University of Georgia and the Temple Owls.  Stegeman Coliseum was a surprisingly nice venue as well having also been recently refurbished and it was super impressive how many people showed up for a 1 pm non-conference tip on the Friday before Christmas as the building was probably over 75% full.  The game wasn't nearly as competitive as hoped, but the crowd was definitely into the game throughout.

Outside of the Stegeman Coliseum

Pretty sweet mural on one of the baselines showing some of the best players in UGA history

Georgia with a hook shot in the lane

Temple with the aggressive take to the rim