Men's Basketball
Home Team: BGSU Falcons
Visiting Team: Miami RedHawks
Venue: Anderson Arena (Bowling Green, Ohio)
Game Time: 7:00 p.m.
Fellow Attendees: None
One thing that has to stop: visiting fans being able to come to Anderson Arena and carve themselves a large area right in the middle of the student section, which happens to be the prime seats. I don't blame them for doing it--it's a general admission area, the seats are great, and our students certainly aren't coming out in force to prevent them from doing so. It sucks a lot of energy out of the arena, though.
One of the highlights of Miami visiting Anderson Arena is, generally, watching the antics of Miami's head coach, Charlie Coles. He's usually pretty animated, making him a target for fan heckling. Tonight, though, he was way more subdued than usual. Maybe he's under the weather, or maybe he just misses Coach Dakich--another animated guy, he and Charlie really seemed to enjoy one another. Who knows?
It looked early on like this was going to be another setback for the Falcons. Miami came out hot, and BG came out cold. The RedHawks jumped out to a 12-2 lead, and the Falcons looked like they'd have a hard time throwing it in the ocean...and then they switched to a zone defense. That turned the game around right there. They were able to put the clamps on Miami's offense, and their own began to warm up. They scratched and clawed to tie the game at 19, and they didn't look back. They built a decent lead in the second half, which Miami was able to bring down toward the end, but the Falcons were able to hold on and fend off a last-minute shot that would have sent the game to overtime.
Before the game, I attended an info session on the new convocation center project that was recently announced. I've spent so much time in and have grown so fond of Anderson Arena, I wanted to know as much as possible about the new nest for the Falcons. As it turns out, there wasn't a whole lot of definite information to be had. They're still in the very early stages, and although they've narrowed things down, they're not even 100% decided on details such as the site and the capacity of the new arena.
Still, it was highly interesting to hear about the process that went into the decision to build a new arena (not that it was much in doubt, given the state of Anderson--I love the place, but it'll never be mistaken for the lap of luxury by either players or spectators). And I got to chat with Athletic Director Greg Christopher for a few minutes, which was pretty cool. I asked him about the location of the student section, as that's the one factor that contributes most heavily to the atmosphere of Anderson Arena, and he assured me that the students would remain on the floor, that their #1 priority for the new place was to create as much of a home-court advantage as possible. And I'm all for that, even if I decide to leave my youth behind and get tickets somewhere other than the student section when the new building opens for business.
No comments:
Post a Comment