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| Trip Report: Auburn Hills Thursday night, my son and I set out on a "guy's trip" to Auburn Hills. We couldn't stay for Sunday's follow-up to Friday's 1st round action (my son had his own basketball games on Saturday). However, our road trip to watch 4 basketball games, and 12 hours of driving in a 43 hour span allowed me to come to realize the following four things.
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1) Tickets were very easy to get. I couldn't believe what a "buyer's market" it was. I went to Cleveland last year, and remember it being a lot tougher of a ticket, and couldn't believe how many people were there to see Wake Forest versus Tennessee-Chattanooga.
So, this year, like last, I scrambled to find my tickets ahead of time for WVU's session. You see, in the NCAA tourney, your ticket gets you 2 games. That means 4 schools have tickets. I called Northwestern State, as surely there's no way a school no one's heard of from Louisiana was going to use their allotment of tickets to a game in Detroit. Wrong. I was told I could be placed on a waiting list. I knew Iowa would use theirs, but called anyway. No luck. Finally, I resorted to calling our opponent, Southern Illinois. No problem at all. 2 tickets would be waiting for me at will-call. I wasn't thrilled at the thought of sitting in Saluki country, but I had tickets.
As I walked to the arena, I must have been asked 100 times if I needed any tickets. Luckily for me, one guy followed my "no", with a retort of "I've got front row". Hold the boat. OK. I figured if we were going to go, we were going to do it in style. My 9 year old son thinks I'm "the man" now too for securing such a treat.
I tried to dump my Southern Illinois -issued tickets, but found it very difficult to stand out in the cold with a hundred other "sellers" looking for that one buyer. So, I ate them. If nothing else, we have 2 intact NCAA Tournament tickets for keepsakes.
2) Bradley? I had never cognizantly heard of Bradley, at least not in regards to a Division I basketball program. My mistake. I could not believe how many fans this school from Peoria, Illinois brought. They were loud, abundant, very red in the stands, and not what you'd expect from a "smaller school". In essence, I was very impressed. Heck, their pep band was even really good.
3) Pitt's colors. Since I just mentioned Bradley's impact on the color schemes of the stands, Pitt was completely the opposite. That stomach acid yellow (like the dribbling you ooze out after a night of mixing things you shouldn't), and their bland blue can make 100 fans look like 5 in the stands. Of the 8 schools in Auburn Hills, by far the one with the worst "presence" was Pitt. Such an assessment of a Big East school within 4.5 hours drive against the likes of Kent State, Southern Illinois, Bradley, and Northwestern State is a little shocking. Each of the latter completely out-fanned the former. Someone at Pitt really needs to address this lack of "presence". They may have been there, but you couldn't tell.
4) Here's a cute story. The team hotel was the Holiday Inn Select in Auburn Hills. As you can see from the pictures, a HUGE crowd gathered in the lobby to welcome back the team.
While we waited, any person that walked through the front door was greeted with a huge, welcoming roar... including a DHL delivery guy getting a "D-H-L" chant and high fives.
The team finally came back, and after the initial chaos, Coach Beilein stopped and asked "Can I have everyone's attention please?" It took a few tries, but the crowd finally hushed.
He said something on the lines of... "On behalf of the team, we just want to thank you. This is awesome." ... as well as some other stuff.
Here is a picture of that moment...
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