Game #125 of 362 34% complete

My plans for a 4 game trip to Wisconsin early in January were snuffed by a blizzard halting all flights into the Milwaukee area. I had a complimentary ticket to one game and was honored to be designated as the “fan of the game” at another school as I always give the athletic directors a heads up to my upcoming visits. I donated my Marquette ticket to the Big Brothers and Sisters organization in Wisconsin to find some good in this snafu. So in desperation to salvage this season, I scheduled a quickie trip to South Carolina with two games in one afternoon and a return the next day back to Connecticut. Kudos to Breeze Airlines for their non stop trip to Charleston. The downside of this kind of trip is the lack of time to see the sights or visit some cool restaurant.

I was greeted by a huge statue of former South Carolina player A’ja Wilson. The women’s program is celebrated here due to the dominance in women’s college basketball. Coming from a UConn fan, coach Dawn Staley has done an excellent job making the Gamecocks a perennial power.

The pre game introductions were quite a show with fire and fireworks celebrating each Gamecock player introduction. The house was packed and certainly one of the loudest that I have experienced in my travels. Having the students in the lower level surrounding the court made the atmosphere even more outstanding. The fans also had a towel that they would wave in a circle over the heads in beat with the fast music from the DJ.

I was very impressed with South Carolina forward B.J. Mack a 6’8″ 280 pound forward who came over from Wofford. He was first team at SoCon last year and came over as a grad student to the Gamecocks this season. He has a soft touch and can play inside or shoot from the outside as evidenced by his 21 points from all areas of the court in this game.

In the picture above, you can see #75 Connor Vanover sitting at the end on the Tigers bench. I thought ’75” was an unusual number till I looked up his height. You guessed it – 7 feet 5 inches. As happens many times in my travels, I see players who I have seen before somewhere. I looked it up and quickly remembered that he was on the Oral Roberts team that made a run to the elite 8 in the 2021 March Madness tournament. His teammate was Max Abmas who now stars for Texas. Vanover was impressive in this game but sat quite frequently for reasons unknown to me.

Missouri despite being 0-6 in the SEC conference gave South Carolina a run for its money. I am sure the South Carolina fans are used to this but I had to smirk at the cheer when one side of the arena yells “Go” and the other side yells “Cocks” Just for the record, a “gamecock” is a type of rooster.