An electric atmosphere at Mohegan Sun
Opening season tournaments are great ways for schedule challenged teams, like Washington, to get out on the road and face some top competition. This gives them hope to build their own personal resumes, as well as, the conference’s.
For Washington – and this is very apparent having watched Washington hoops over the past decade, is that they are a team who feeds off the crowd. They are a very, very tough home team – and the Huskies have traditionally used their crowd to start to build winning streaks and take down others in the PAC-12 who are national powers.
Give last years preseason tournament in MSG, and this year’s tournament at Mohegan Sun (seriously? A casino/WNBA arena?), these are tournaments that are harder for the Husky faithful to follow them and give them the energy that they need.
Against Ohio State earlier today, I think there might have been 15 people at the game, even counting the benches and coaches for both teams on the court. This is pathetic. At least with the tournament at MSG last year, Seattleites would want to go to NYC. NYC is cool. Rural Connecticut probably sucks. I haven’t been there, but looking at the Google Map, I can’t imagine anyone would want to go there besides gamblers. I also tried looking at a Bing Map, and I came to the same conclusion. Norwich hasn’t been a cracking place since 1789.
Going to the east coast also has never done the Huskies any favors. Any time any team from Seattle travels to the east coast, they might as well throw up the L and get back on the charter plane. At least that way, they don’t have an opportunity for that dreaded jet lag. They get more charter plane goodies, such as movies and snacks, for an entire day.
I don’t think winning these games on the east coast does anything for the vaunted “West Coast Bias” that we all know and love in our forested corner of the country. If anything, it hurts the Huskies more to just go there and lose.
These tournaments in Maui and Alaska do draw east coast teams. This is the chance to beat them. Make THEM fly! Plus, it is just easier for guys like me to jump on an Alaska Air direct flight and actually see some of these games and fill these arenas. It is just crazy how empty these arenas are for west coast teams. Unless it is UCLA or Arizona, there is no way you are getting some random from Norwalk off the craps table to go see a game. However, most west coasters would get off their ass to see a decent east coast team beat the tar out of someone like Chaminade or U of Alaska – Anchorage (note, not U of Alaska – Fairbanks, based on this hype video, I would never want to play them in any sport. It’s the BULLS THEME SONG and Kenny Loggins. Note to self, never go to the Carlson Center.)
So Woodward, if you are reading this – let’s keep the Dawgs on the west coast for now.
