Wild At Heart
One thing I really enjoy is road tripping and this past week took me to Syracuse to fulfill a lifelong ambition. I have been a huge fan of college hoops for as long as I can remember. I had seen all my favorite teams play at one point or another but rarely at their home arenas. My favorite team is Duke and I saw them years ago at the University of Michigan which was a real rush. Coming in 2nd place has been Syracuse which I have seen in multiple arenas going back to the Pearl and Seikaly years but I never had made the trip to the Carrier Dome until this year. Despite numerous division one games at neutral sites or schools like Oakland University and Bowling Green State University, I found out there is nothing like seeing a game at a big time school. When I saw Michigan play Duke, UM was in a downturn and Duke crushed them. The atmosphere was kind of lax. Syracuse, which despite losing their main man, is currently in the top 5 and the place was electric.
The above pic gives a little bit but not the whole picture as the place which had 28,000 people strong and most of them wearing the color Orange. The game itself was average as Syracuse held on to a 63-61 win over West Virginia despite 20% at the 3 pt line and an inability to get a rebound. They mainly won because they took the turnover battle which was the only times they looked good and those moments had the roof vibrating. I'm glad I finally made a game though wondering why it took me so long since I used to passed the Dome on the way to college back in the day.
I stayed for the girls game afterwards who lost a close one to Cincinnati. Both games were entertaining coming down to the last shot, but it always pisses me off to see a big drop off in fans for the women's game. About only 2,000 people stayed for the game as partially seen by the lack of crowd in this shot.
It was also cool because the Orange mascot was walking around entertaining the fans and they had a killer pep band playing.
They also have a nice restaurant/bar where I got a bowl of lobster bisque between games and they have some nice displays celebrating their football and basketball legacy including there 2003 Championship trophy.
I also enjoyed walking around the campus for a bit. They have a quality art gallery (the Shaffer) on campus and a lot of beautiful building and statues.
Around campus, they have an the Everson Museum Of Art which has one of the biggest collections of pottery in the world and the Armory Square which has a big grouping of restaurants and a great music store called the Soundgarden. If you ever get to the Syracuse area, it is a great place to get a bite to eat and take in a game and one of the best arenas in college sports.
This is a week with not a lot of music but here are a couple of shows going on in the area:
Thursday (2/02) - CJ Chenier & the Red Hot Louisiana Band @ PJ's (Ann Arbor), Frontier Ruckus @ the Ark, School Of Rock @ Emerald Theatre
Friday (2/03) - Prussia @ Pike Room
Have a good week.