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 #169: F.G. Clark Center - Southern vs. Prairie View A&M

For my second game on Saturday, I drove across town in Baton Rouge to visit Arena #169, the F.G. Clark Center on the campus of Southern University, for a Southwestern Athletic Conference (SWAC) matchup between the Southern Jaguars and the top team in the conference, the Prairie View A&M Panthers.  This was my first-ever visit to a SWAC conference school and my first-ever SWAC conference contest, meaning I’ve been to a game at a school in all but 2 of the NCAA Division 1 conferences (America East and Northeast remain).  The F.G. Clark Center was a pretty non-descript building from the outside and my thoughts didn’t improve much upon getting inside.  The arena holds probably 8,000 people, but, on this day, the entire upper level was roped off and even the lower bowl was probably no more than 3/4 full for Senior Day.  Honestly, this was probably a good thing though as even with the smaller crowd on hand, the concourses were cramped to navigate around and there was only 1 concession stand open for the entire crowd, which made that section of the concourse almost impossible to navigate through.

I came into this game expecting it to be fairly competitive given this was a matchup of the top two teams in the conference, but honestly I was most excited to see and hear the band performances throughout the game knowing how well known and honored HBCU bands are.  I will say the band lived up to my expectations, and was probably the highlight of my visit by far, but the game was certainly a bit of a disappointment even though it was quite competitive.  The quality of the on-court action was honestly not very good and lead to some very inconsistent action that had very little flow.  Fouls piled up on both teams through the game and led to the game taking forever to play.  As I still had to head back to New Orleans for the evening, and the game had already crossed the 2-hour mark, I chose to leave the game with about 5 minutes left and Southern up 7 points.  It would turn out that the game would ultimately go to overtime, but Southern would pull out a 9-point win.

Outside of the F.G. Clark Center at Southern University

View of the multipurpose seating area of the F.G. Clark Center

Opening tip for some SWAC action between Southern and Prairie View A&M

The famous Southern University band jamming out during a media timeout

Arena #168: Pete Maravich Assembly Center - Louisiana St. vs. Georgia

For my final trip of the regular season (and what would ultimately turn out to be my final trip overall after Coronavirus stopped the world), it was off to the state of Louisiana for a weekend tripleheader starting at Louisiana St. University (LSU) in Baton Rouge.  These would be my first games ever in the state of Louisiana; bringing my total number of states where I’ve seen a game to 40 and the District of Columbia.  On this afternoon, the LSU Tigers were hosting the Georgia Bulldogs in the final SEC game of the regular season at the Pete Maravich Assembly Center, Arena #168.

Walking up to the Maravich Center, you walk right past Tiger Stadium (aka Death Valley), which just towers over the basketball arena.  Additionally, you walk past one of the most unique features of LSU sports in general, the habitat of Mike the Tiger.  There’s certainly not many places in the country where you have a live animal mascot housed right outside the school’s sports facilities as is the case in Baton Rouge.  For obvious reasons, Mike does not make an appearance in the arena for basketball games, but is brought out onto the field for football games.  From the outside (and the inside), the Maravich Center is almost a carbon copy of the State Farm Center in Champaign, IL, which is the home of the University of Illinois basketball program.  The concourses aren’t very wide, but the huge windows throughout the concourse make it appear much more spacious than it really is.  The seating bowl itself is well designed and the layout is nearly perfect to where I’d argue there probably isn’t a bad seat in the building with even the 300 section of the arena seeming like it’s decently close to the action.  On this day, I was fortunate enough to get a reasonably priced center court ticket that gave me access to the Legends Club, which was a private room off the concourse that offered plush seating, specialty drinks, and free popcorn pregame and at halftime.  It wasn’t overly fancy, but was a decent place to hang out and stretch instead of being in a cramped arena seat.

LSU was having a relatively strong season again on the basketball court, and were even ranked in the top 20 at one point before going on a bit of a losing streak, and Georgia was struggling even though they had one of the top NBA draft prospects in the country in guard Anthony Edwards.  As such, I didn’t expect this game to be overly competitive, but I hoped that Georgia could keep it somewhat close at least.  As it turned out, my initial assumptions were correct that LSU was by far the superior team in this contest, especially playing at home and especially being on Senior Day with the Tigers having 3 senior players and honoring a 4^th young man, Wayde Sims, who would have been a senior before his untimely passing prior to his junior season.  LSU dominated the game throughout in a 94-64 win that would turn out to be the Tigers final win (and final game) of the season to finish with a record of 21-10 (12-6 SEC).  LSU would have expected to hear its name called on Selection Sunday if the world hadn’t turned upside down soon after this game was played.

Mike the Tiger in his habitat just outside the Maravich Center

Outside view of the Pete Maravich Assembly Center

Even halfway up the upper level of the seating bowl the view isn't too bad

Opening tip between the Tigers and Bulldogs

LSU going for the slam early in the game