Tech Sports Blog

[The following post was also published at HokieHaven.com on March 20, 2007.]

Late Friday night I emailed my friend Kevin. Kevin went in with me on basketball season tickets, we went to nearly every home game. My email to Kevin read:

Crazy game … I still can’t believe we pulled it off. I’ve read that there are plenty of tickets to be had.

Want to get up at the butt-crack of dawn on Sunday and head up to Columbus?

I was half-joking, and I expected him to replay that he’d love to go but couldn’t make it. Instead, Kevin called and left me a voicemail saying, “How much are tickets, and how far is the drive?” I called him back, and we decided to make to the trip.

Saturday night I drove down to his house in Christiansburg. We got up well before dawn and left his house just after 6am Sunday morning.

We nearly got lost en route to Columbus. We took I-77 to US-33 and missed the on-ramp to stay on US-33 near Pomeroy because I was on the phone, and he was a slacking on his duties riding shotgun. We drove about 20 minutes on Ohio Route 7 along the Ohio River until we realized our mistake.

We arrived in Columbus at about 11:45am, immediately parked, and bought 2 tickets in the nosebleeds in section 205 at $50 per. If we waited 20 minutes, we would have been able to buy tickets for much less. It would have been nice to save a few more bucks, but I really can’t complain. It was essentially $25 per game.

The place was crawling with Ohio State fans, which didn’t bother me at all. Being born in Cleveland, I consider Ohio State my second team. It was nice to talk about the Buckeyes, as well as the Cleveland Browns, with some Ohio natives. There was a Wahoo fan with his 2 little boys behind me. He was pretty cool, although I did get sick of him participating during the UVA chants. (I can’t say too much, as I was yelling & screaming during our game.) He left after the Virginia game was over.

At halftime of our game, we moved down to the lower level and sat with the group of Hokies that were directly across from the Tech bench. It was great being so much closer to the action. Kevin and I were screaming our heads off, and we really got into the game down there.

After the game, we waited around with the family & friends of a few players and saw the team board the bus. We felt out of place, but it was interesting to people watch. It seemed like the younger players looked more heartbroken than the upperclassmen.

We chatted a little bit with Deron Washington’s mother. She is down to earth and pretty funny. She called the season “exhausting”, and I could sense a little bit of relief that it was over although she was still disappointed in the result. She is definitely the “team mom”. Nearly every player went over and gave her a hug. There was a bittersweet moment when Chris Tucker came out and met his parents.

We congratulated a few of them on a great season and finally left the arena around 6:30pm.

Even though the game was disappointing, I am glad that I made the trip. Nationwide Arena was a great venue. It was a very different experience than any of the regular season games. Most of the crowd was there just to watch basketball, and really didn’t favor one team or the other. Even though there wasn’t much energy from the crowd, you could still sense the tension from teams. For one team in each game, the season was going to end.

I do wish more Hokies had made the trip. It felt like we had maybe a couple of hundred. If I had to guess, I would say we had 300 fans there. I think this team deserved more support.

I don’t want to end on a negative note, so I’ll quote the end of my last blog post:

The achievements of this team – particularly the seniors – should not be lost in March Madness. From the final year in the Big East to a surprising 8-8 conference record in their first year in the ACC, and from the year of heartbreaks and heartache to this year’s 5-seed in the NCAA Tournament, those seniors have helped Seth Greenberg elevate the basketball program from the basement to top third of the premiere conference of Division 1 basketball.

Regardless of what this weekend brings, this is the best season of basketball I have witnessed since I’ve been Hokie.

The roller coaster has come to stop, and this season of Hokie basketball is in the books. I still think it was one hell of a ride.

Jamon Gordon, Zabian Dowdell, Coleman Collins, Chris Tucker, and Markus Sailes – Thank you for the last four years and best of luck.

Categories: VT Basketball
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