After many years of attending the ACC Tournament and enjoying everything from southern hospitality to the scorn of Duke fans and the likes. We like many other Terp fans made the trip to the team's first ever appearance in the BIG10 Tournament.
I must say we were a bit apprehensive and not really sure what to expect. (MD had excellent representation)
Our general experience I would say was fairly decent. While many of the BIG10 fans assured us the place to go and really enjoy the tournament is when they host it in Indy. Apparently the venue is more appealing to the college style set-up with each school having territorial rights to surrounding bars and restaurants...guess we'll have to go in and do battle for one?
Compared to the ACC event the BIG10 did not have an adjoining area where they offered interactive fan experiences such as the three pointing shooting, face painting, the custom license tags and so forth. The United Center was not centrally located and a bit of a drive from not only the team hotel, but the general hotels in the downtown area. However, the BIG10 did provide a free bus service, which ran a north and south route through the city running every 30 minutes dropping you off just outside the parking lot in front of Center and departing the same location. The drivers and those working the service were friendly and helpful. Unlike having to earn a shirt at the foul line or in the 3 point contest in the fan zone The BIG Ten Network handed out team shirts just before each team's first game of the week. The Maryland shirt is in red with gold lettering COLLGE SPORTS on the front and BTN Network MARYLAND along the back top of the shirt...nice little freebie
One additional thing we always enjoyed at the ACC was the buffet you could purchase tickets for between the two days there were double sessions. Always allowed you to stay on property, get a nice meal, beer and wine and was fairly inexpensive versus leaving and waiting in line at nearby restaurants. Although Miller's next to the hotel had dinner service till late and a bar open until 4am.
All in all not bad,,,was strange not really having a true rival (and I watch a lot of BIG10 BB) ,,,as to my vote for friendly fans Minnesota...and other than that not seeing a damn DUKE shirt all week was really nice for a change.
This post was edited on 3/15 1:32 PM by Frank921
I must say we were a bit apprehensive and not really sure what to expect. (MD had excellent representation)
Our general experience I would say was fairly decent. While many of the BIG10 fans assured us the place to go and really enjoy the tournament is when they host it in Indy. Apparently the venue is more appealing to the college style set-up with each school having territorial rights to surrounding bars and restaurants...guess we'll have to go in and do battle for one?
Compared to the ACC event the BIG10 did not have an adjoining area where they offered interactive fan experiences such as the three pointing shooting, face painting, the custom license tags and so forth. The United Center was not centrally located and a bit of a drive from not only the team hotel, but the general hotels in the downtown area. However, the BIG10 did provide a free bus service, which ran a north and south route through the city running every 30 minutes dropping you off just outside the parking lot in front of Center and departing the same location. The drivers and those working the service were friendly and helpful. Unlike having to earn a shirt at the foul line or in the 3 point contest in the fan zone The BIG Ten Network handed out team shirts just before each team's first game of the week. The Maryland shirt is in red with gold lettering COLLGE SPORTS on the front and BTN Network MARYLAND along the back top of the shirt...nice little freebie
One additional thing we always enjoyed at the ACC was the buffet you could purchase tickets for between the two days there were double sessions. Always allowed you to stay on property, get a nice meal, beer and wine and was fairly inexpensive versus leaving and waiting in line at nearby restaurants. Although Miller's next to the hotel had dinner service till late and a bar open until 4am.
All in all not bad,,,was strange not really having a true rival (and I watch a lot of BIG10 BB) ,,,as to my vote for friendly fans Minnesota...and other than that not seeing a damn DUKE shirt all week was really nice for a change.
This post was edited on 3/15 1:32 PM by Frank921
