Arena #161: Athletics O'Rena - Oakland vs. IUPUI

It's hard to believe that after 160 different venues visited, I still had not been to all the arenas in 1 Division 1 conference as of yet.  That changed today with my visit to the Athletics O'Rena at Oakland University, which served as Arena #161 overall, but more importantly as the 10th and final stop within the Horizon League.  Growing up in Wisconsin, I've been reasonably familiar with the Horizon League (and its predecessor the Mid-Continent Conference) and have always been somewhat of a fan of the Oakland Golden Grizzlies for their unique mascot, unique uniforms (names below numbers before it was en vogue in other leagues) and more recently their unique blacktop-inspired court.

Having come from Detroit-Mercy and its location in a somewhat run-down part of the Detroit outskirts, it was quite the contrast driving a mere 30 minutes north to Rochester, MI and its location near some of the most affluent towns in the entire country.  The outside of the Athletics O'Rena is fairly nondescript and blends into the rest of the buildings around it on campus, but it's a different story when you get inside and see the blacktop-colored court on which the Golden Grizzlies play.  Due to the timing of the 2 games, we arrived just as the game was getting out of the under 12 media timeout in the first half to a 16-12 IUPUI lead over the home team.  The teams traded baskets throughout the remainder of the first half and ended up deadlocked at 33 at the half.  The second half was a lot of the same though Oakland employed more of a balanced attack while IUPUI relied on the crazy hot shooting of Marcus Burk and Jaylen Minnett who ended up with 39 and 30, respectively on the night.  The game ended up going to overtime where IUPUI took control early in the extra session and held on to take an 89-85 win back to Indianapolis.

Loving the mascot theme on the entrance to the Athletics O'Rena

Impressive crowd for the day, especially coming from the few folks down at the Detroit-Mercy game

One of the most unique courts in all of D1 basketball

Jaylen Minnett from IUPUI launching one of his many deep and contested 3s

Missed opening tip, but got a second chance at a tip pic at the start of overtime!

Arena #160: Calihan Hall - Detroit-Mercy vs. Illinois-Chicago

Finally got a winter weather free weekend in the upper Midwest to make the 6 hour drive over to the Detroit area for a doubleheader Saturday to complete the #Mission351 journey in the state of Michigan.  Game 1 took us to the outskirts of downtown Detroit and the campus of the University of Detroit-Mercy for a visit to Calihan Hall for Arena #160.  On this afternoon, the UDM Titans were hosting the Illinois-Chicago Flames in a Horizon League conference matchup.  UDM has had minimal basketball relevance in the last couple decades, but made headlines a few years ago when they honored well-known ESPN commentator and former coach and AD, Dick Vitale, by naming their basketball court after him.  Love him or hate him, Dickie V is a personality so getting a pic with the Dick Vitale Court was always going to be the highlight of this visit.  The rest of Calihan Hall wasn't terribly impressive as the building is fairly old, has a limited concourse with 1 concession stand selling basic hot dogs and pizza and there was little to no fan or student section presence making the atmosphere pretty dull for a weekend game.

Having no connection to a lot of the teams and games I go see, it's always fun to go to games when there's random giveaways and promotions,  which was the case today as UDM was retiring the jersey of former player Willie Green at halftime and honored him with a bobblehead giveaway.  Getting the bobblehead pre-game was cool; having halftime take like 25 minutes instead of 15 when you have a second game 30 minutes away with 1 pm and 3 pm tip-times was less than cool.  Throughout the first half, it didn't look like this was going to end up being much of a game as Detroit-Mercy steadily built up a 9 point lead to halftime behind some deep, and frequently ill-advised, shots of one of the leading scorers in the NCAA in Antoine Davis, son of head coach Mike Davis (yes that Mike Davis who coached Indiana to the 2002 National Championship game).  However, the first few minutes of the second half completely flipped the game as UIC turned that 9 point halftime deficit into a 7 point lead at the under 12 media timeout before we had to head out to Game 2 in Oakland.  Turns out the game ended up being a classic with UDM hitting a jumper at the buzzer off a missed UIC free throw to win the game by 1...second time now that I've had to leave 1 game a little early to make a second and missed a buzzer beater (my visit to the Scheels Center in Fargo, ND for NDSU vs. SDSU being the other)!

Main entrance to Calihan Hall at Detroit-Mercy

Inside Calihan Hall, featuring Dick Vitale Court

Opening tip between the Titans and Flames

One of the many shots from Antoine Davis of UDM from way downtown (I mean it's from the logo man...)

UDM with a dunk early in the second half