Arena #165: Marriott Center - #23 Brigham Young vs. #2 Gonzaga

The second game of the day, the final game of my visit to Utah, and the whole reason I came to Utah in the first place, was to watch #2 Gonzaga visit #23 Brigham Young at the Marriott Center in Provo.  While I’ve seen Gonzaga play a bunch of times across the country, this was my first opportunity to see them in a West Coast Conference game and it was in by far the biggest venue within the conference.  The Marriott Center, which is Arena #165 on Mission 351, has a capacity of over 19,000, which is more than double the size of any other arena in the conference and more than 3x the size of the McCarthey Athletic Center where Gonzaga plays their home games.  I’d always imagined in my mind how huge this place was going to be, but it actually turned out it wasn’t as massive as the picture I had in my mind.

Additionally, it’s been a while since I’ve been to a sold-out game with a raucous crowd so I was thrilled to walk into the building 75 minutes before tip and see a packed student section already amped up for the game.  As the rest of the crowd filled in and Senior Day activities began for the Cougars, the anticipation for the game was electric.  I’m not sure I’ve ever seen as elaborate a pregame ceremony and hype video as BYU had having huge curtains drop down from the ceiling to show the hype video on those curtains.  Obviously, I had no interest in the BYU fans being hyped for this game, but definitely could appreciate the presentation and turnout to create one of the best college basketball environments I’ve been in for a long time.

I fully expected this to be a difficult game and environment for Gonzaga knowing BYU had a strong inside/outside punch with 6’8 Yoeli Childs on the inside and sharpshooter (and I think 10^th year senior) TJ Haws on the outside.  What I didn’t expect was such a poor defensive effort from the Zags as they got carved up inside and outside throughout the night.  BYU was able to pretty much do whatever they wanted to do throughout the evening and Gonzaga wasn’t able to keep up consistently.  The Zags allowed 46 points in the first half to trail by 8 at the break.  Things got better for a bit in the second half as Gonzaga managed to get the lead down to 1 point at the under 8 media timeout after trailing by as many as 14.  However, that is as close as Gonzaga would ultimately get as BYU hit more timely shots and pulled away for a 91-78 victory.  While it was definitely disappointing to see the Zags take home the L, I can never be upset as a college basketball fan in general to witness a good court storming in action.

Entrance to the Marriott Center on the campus of Brigham Young

View from the upper level of the Marriott Center

Unbelievable intros here dropping down a giant curtain to show the pregame hype video

Opening tip between the Bulldogs and Cougars in front of 19,000+

Killian Tillie of Gonzaga with the interior shot as the Zags attempt to comeback in the game

Arena #164: UCCU Center - Utah Valley vs. Grand Canyon

After a day off from Mission 351 to visit the Vivint.Smart Home Arena for a Jazz/Spurs NBA contest, it was time for a Saturday doubleheader starting with Arena #164, the UCCU Center in Orem, UT, for my first-ever Western Athletic Conference (WAC) game between the host Utah Valley Wolverines and the visiting Grand Canyon Lopes.  Driving to the campus of Utah Valley, I knew very little about the school and had no idea what to expect from their facilities.  Turns out the school is on a huge building spree since they made the jump to Division 1 starting in the 2004-05 season and have a bunch of their sporting venues all clustered together just off the interstate on campus.  While the UCCU Center is over 20 years old, the building looks fairly modern and newer from the outside.  What I did find strange, however, was that their ticket office was inside the building at street level and you then took a freight elevator up to the concourse level to enter the seating bowl.

On this day, the university was honoring their former athletics director who led the school on a direct transition from being a junior college to an NCAA Division 1 institution.  Apparently, Utah Valley is the only school to make that dramatic of a jump without making a stop in a lower-tier division first.  From talking to some of the arena staff and overhearing some fans behind me, it sounded like UVU doesn’t get a lot of fans to come out for their games regularly.  As such, I expected to see a pretty sparse crowd.  As it turned out, this wasn’t the case on this day as nearly 6,000 people packed into the building for the game.  Even though the stands were pretty full, the student section was still relatively sparse, even with offers of free t-shirts and free pizza.  When it became clear that these seats weren’t going to be claimed, I was able to score myself a pretty decent free t-shirt and some free pizza for my $8 ticket!

For the last few seasons, Grand Canyon has probably consistently been the second-best team in the WAC.  Consequently, I expected a pretty competitive game that GCU would win, especially given that they played Illinois pretty tough at home early in the season.  As it turned out, Utah Valley was the dominant team on this day.  The Wolverines built a solid 7-point lead heading into halftime before exploding for 54 points in the second half, including nearly 30 points in the first 8 minutes after the break, to secure a 92-80 win.

The UCCU Center in Orem, UT

Not the biggest, but also not a small arena either

Grand Canyon driving to the hoop in the first half

The Utah Valley marching band aka the Green Men

Raise your hand if you knew Utah Valley was a Great West Conference Champion (or if you knew the Great West was a D1 conference in the past!)

Arena #163: Jon M. Huntsman Center - Utah vs. UCLA

After an evening in Logan, UT, it was back to Salt Lake City for a visit to the Jon M. Huntsman Center at the University of Utah for Arena #163.  On this evening, the Utes were taking on the suddenly red-hot UCLA Bruins in a Pac-12 Conference matchup.  Similar to the Dee Glen Smith Spectrum, the Huntsman Center was also celebrating its 50^th anniversary this season and looked nearly identical in layout to the Smith Spectrum with the exception of having its concourse outside of the seating bowl and having a 15 or so row upper deck as well.  Now I’m not a big Utah fan, but I was extra excited about catching a game here because of the NCAA history the Huntsman Center holds.  It was the site of the famous 1979 NCAA title game between Magic Johnson’s Michigan State team and the Indiana State Sycamores of Larry Bird.  It was also the site of the epic round of 32, double-overtime NCAA game between Arizona and Gonzaga back in 2003. 

Getting to the Huntsman Center from downtown SLC was super easy as the UTA Trax light rail has a stop basically right in front of the building.  Definitely made it easier than having to drive out to the arena and find parking on campus.  The interior of the building was certainly nothing to write home about as the concourse was pretty basic and also pretty narrow.  I would imagine when the house is packed, the concourses become pretty difficult to get through freely.  I did like how there were display cases throughout the concourse of trophies and celebrations of the Utes’ various other sports including their national championship pedigree in more obscure sports like gymnastics and alpine skiing.

As for the basketball side of things, the Utes have had a pretty inconsistent season having some big wins, including a win over Kentucky, as well as some pretty terrible losses.  UCLA on the other hand started the season pretty poorly in their first season under new head coach Mick Cronin, but have really turned things around in the last month.  As such, I figured this might be a pretty competitive game with a pretty decent crowd.  Turns out I was wrong on both fronts.  The crowd was maybe half full at best, though an 8:30 pm local tip time for TV on a Thursday night certainly didn’t help.  The on-court action was also pretty uncompetitive as the Bruins more-or-less dominated the Utes from tip to finish.  UCLA was certainly the more talented team and it was interesting to see how some of their star recruits were finally playing up to their potential compared to earlier in the season when UCLA was dropping games to lower-tier teams like Hofstra and Cal State Fullerton.  The first half was pretty ugly both ways, but especially on the Utah end, scoring only 21 points at the half to trail by 12.  The second half brought more offense for the Utes, but also brought more offense for the Bruins too who eventually took home a 69-58 road win.

Main entrance to the Huntsman Center in Salt Lake City, UT

Inside the arena pregame

Bringing the heat for player introductions

Opening tip between the Utes and Bruins

UCLA playing some tough interior defense against the Utes

Arena #162: Dee Glen Smith Spectrum - Utah St. vs. Wyoming

I’ve been to a lot of states for the games I’ve attended thus far on Mission 351, but I had never seen a college hoops game in the state of Utah before visiting Arena #162,  the Dee Glen Smith Spectrum in Logan, UT, on the campus of Utah State University.  As such, Utah became the 39^th different state (including DC) where I’ve seen a game.  Only 11 more to go since Alaska has no Division 1 programs.  On this evening, the Utah State Aggies were taking on the last place Wyoming Cowboys in a Mountain West Conference showdown.

The Dee Glen Smith Spectrum was celebrating its 50^th anniversary as the homecourt for Utah State this season and the building definitely showed its age in some parts.  However, I would say overall the building was better than I might have expected from a 50 year old venue.  Being a basketball only facility, the layout was perfect in a circular fashion with all seats facing the court where I imagine there aren’t really any bad seats in the house. Traveling solo to this game, I was fortunate to snag a single seat in the first row right at the sideline and baseline intersection so I could really feel like I was in the action.  Now the bad part was that the concourse for Dee Glen Smith Spectrum is at the top of the seating bowl so if you want to get concessions or use the restroom during the game, a front row seat means walking up 40 or so rows to get back to the concourse. 

For being the worst team in the conference record-wise, the Cowboys kept the game close through much of the first half before the Aggies pulled away in the last few minutes to take a 15-point lead into the break.  Now this is when things really got interesting as the halftime entertainment ended up being an aerialist who graduated from Utah State previously.  In all my previous games, I’ve never seen this as a halftime act and it was equal parts mesmerizing and terrifying as a curtain was dropped from a hole in the ceiling and this girl climbed the curtain to probably 25-30 feet in the air at times using just the curtain as support for some pretty incredible stunts and movements.

After the break, Wyoming once again did a good job of staying within 10-12 points for a lot of the second half (even cutting the lead to single digits a few times) before Utah State’s star senior Sam Merrill took over scoring and facilitating.  Merrill was honored pregame for crossing the 2,000 career point mark in the Aggies’ prior game.  The only drama in the final couple minutes was whether or not Utah State would cover the 21-point spread for all those gamblers out there.  USU made 2 free throws with less than 20 seconds left to go up 23 points before Wyoming would come down with under 10 seconds left and bury a 3-point basket for a final score of 78-58 in favor of the Aggies.

Outside the Dee Glen Smith Spectrum in Logan, UT

Seating bowl of the arena before most of the fans arrived

Opening tip between the Aggies and Cowboys

Utah St. star Sam Merrill attacks the basket a layup early in the second half