Arena #111: Ford Center - Evansville vs. Southern Illinois

Final travel weekend for the 2017-18 season started in downtown Evansville, IN at the Ford Center for a Missouri Valley Conference matchup between the Evansville Purple Aces and the Southern Illinois Salukis.  My 8th arena in the MVC was a fairly new and modern arena, though as it serves as a multi-purpose arena for all of Evansville, the arena seemed to be a little too big for a school that has struggled in basketball for the better part of the last couple decades.  Being located in basketball-crazed Indiana, however, seemed to have brought out more fans than I might have expected for this matchup of 2 of the poorer teams in the Valley this season.  In the end, the Purple Aces ended up pummeling the Salukis all afternoon long turning this one into a bit of a snoozer.

Outside the Ford Center on a rainy Saturday afternoon

The arena was nice, but a bit sparsely populated on this day

Opening tip between the Purple Aces and Salukis

One of the many baskets Evansville scored early and often in this matchup

Arena #93: Worthen Arena - Ball St. vs. IUPUI

A warm early December weekend meant a perfect chance to get another couple driving venues checked off the list with the first stop being in Muncie, IN for Ball St. vs. IUPUI.  Unsurprisingly, the crowd was quite sparse, but Ball St. was definitely the better team and was cool seeing them the week before they ended up taking down a top 10 Notre Dame team in South Bend!

Worthen Arena was a pretty unique venue with the roof seeming to be stories above the last rows of seats, which made for an interesting perspective inside the stadium.

Opening tip of the matchup

IUPUI operating in the paint

Cheer team getting the crowd hyped up