This past weekend was our first college basketball experience of the 2015-2016 season, and both games were completely spontaneous. It was the first weekend in over a month that we had no plans for the weekend, so on Saturday morning when we were still laying in bed, Robbie looked to see the match-ups. We noticed that Cal State University-Long Beach was hosting the Aggies of New Mexico State. CSU-LB plays in a pyramid, and Robbie has wanted to get to this venue for a long time. CSU-LB didn't play until 4pm, so we thought heading to the beach before that would be the perfect way to occupy our time until then.
It was around 80 degrees on Saturday, so we started our trek by dining outdoors for lunch. Then we headed west to the beach in Oceanside! We had about 1.5 hours to lay out. The water was pretty cold, but that didn't deter us from enjoying the warm sunshine and sand between our toes!
From Oceanside, it was about an hour and 15 minute drive up to Long Beach. We made it to the campus with about 45 minutes to tip-off, which gave us plenty of time to take in the pyramid! It reminded me a lot of the Luxor in Vegas! The inside was completely hollow, and it was really cool. You almost couldn't see where the top came together! They also used their location on the BEACH to their advantage! It was everywhere in the arena! It's one of my favorite venues I've been to for college basketball.
Tickets were pretty cheap, so we had seats right up from the Aggies bench. I really enjoy being that close to D1 players. You could never get that in a Big10 or ACC arena for the price we paid! New Mexico State has 2 players over 7 feet tall, so we knew it was going to be an entertaining game, and those two 7-footers edged out CSU-LB for our cheering vote that night. It's also nice for me to go to a sporting event and not have a heavy allegiance to either team. It makes those types of games fun for me to just cheer for action.
Despite the Aggies' height, CSU-LB put a lid on the game pretty quick, winning 67-53! Who knew rebounding would be the key to their success?? That night was also Star Wars night, so it was fun to see the people to who dressed in character!
The icing on the cake that night was getting to drive back and sleep in our own bed that night!
The next day, we were headed south to San Diego for a college basketball game! When we were planning our weekend on Saturday morning, I suggested Robbie to look at any close home games played on Sunday being the Packers weren't playing that day, which is rare for the NFL. (Most of you know how that game ended, right? Hail Mary, anyone)!! Anyway, he checked schedules and noticed that the University of San Diego was playing San Diego State University. Oudoors. In Petco Park. And it was December. Umm, of course we had to go! What a cool experience this would be....a basketball game in a pyramid one day, and a basketball game on a baseball field the very next day! Awesome! I honestly would've blown off football for this, had the Packers been playing!
The USD/SDSU game started at 2pm, so we bought tickets that morning off Stubhub, printed them off, and were on the road by 10:30am. It was our plan to park downtown and get lunch near Petco! Parking was so slick, we found a restaurant in the shadows of the diamond, and in no time we were filling our bellies with fish tacos and chicken and waffles! Amazing food! And it was a bonus that we got to see the rest of the NFC North teams lose! Good week! ;)
It was just a short walk to the stadium from there. I really couldn't believe I was going to be watching a live basketball game outdoors in December! That just doesn't happen! It was fun walking into Petco Park that day!
When fans started filing in, it became apparent that SDSU was the more popular team, and the heavy favorites. Petco Park played as a neutral court for the game, but it felt like a home game for SDSU. Again, neither of us had a strong opinion of either team; we just liked the atmosphere! Naturally, we chose to cheer for the underdogs, USD. Both schools had their cheerleaders, student section, and pep bands there, just as though it was a regular game! I thought that was pretty cool!
After tip, USD got off to a fast start, outscoring SDSU 31-19 by half. It was a sloppy first half, too. It took SDSU over 3 minutes to score! At halftime, we were wondering if they were going to score above 40 by the end of the game!
SDSU actually outscored USD in the 2nd half, but being USD had a significant lead in the first half, USD ended up winning by a score of 57-48. It got to be a close game near the end! One other fun thing about Petco Park that we were reminded of when we were there was that the 2016 All-Star game will be hosted at Petco, and that will probably be the next time we go! Nice timing for us! :)
Seeing a college basketball game outdoors was really a fun experience. There used to be a tradition that on the season opener, a game would be played on a battle ship deck in San Diego, but they recently put a kebash on that due to so much moisture on the court. I'm so glad we had last weekend wide open to do whatever we wanted because what we did was totally worth it!
"The only important statistic is the final score." -Bill Russell
