VCU - Where Hunting Is A Major

Trip Recap #4 - March 4th, 3rd day of the trip. Looked up local malls online, determined that Charleston Towne Square Mall was probably the best bet. It was unique, easily the hugest Aeropostale and smallest Finish Line this blog has ever seen. Overpriced mall on the whole. This blog went to the food court, ideally would have gone to the Chick-Fil-A, but it was closed on a Sunday. Instead ended up getting way overpriced Burger King instead, as well as a cookie at some cookie place. Not a wasted trip, but certainly was hoping for more with the mall.

Part of why the trip was not wasted was that this blog stumbled upon the University of Richmond while heading over to the mall, which was very cool since this blog now knew how to get there for tomorrow, so more on that with the next recap, since this blog was planning on heading to Virginia Commonwealth's bookstore too.

Getting back to downtown Richmond, this blog entered the Coliseum to find that they had moved the "Ring of Champions" up a deck. This ring was kind of cool. Every year's tournament champion was listed on a banner showing the year. After the 2006 banner, instead of ending it, they had one up that said only "Who Will Be Next??"

So this was cool. Based on fairly small crowds the first two nights, they had them hanging from the 2nd deck. Well this night, they were hanging from the 3rd deck, which really was unexpected. This was because the "3rd Deck" was really just a few sections worth of extra seats situated above the 2nd deck in each end zone. This meant the signs really had to get crammed together to fit, since they had previously spanned a much larger pair of arcs on the 2nd deck.

Drexel faced off against Virginia Commonwealth in the early game. Some great signs from Drexel's student section, both aimed at VCU's students:

"VCU = UVA Rejects"

"Shouldn't you be watchin' Nascar?"

"VCU - Where hunting is a major."

VCU responded with a sign saying "Your Signs Suck"

At the half, there was a Special Olympics athlete that was delivering a speech to the crowd. It was a very touching speech, but funny in parts. This blog is paraphrasing and hopes it doesn't butcher his message, but he began his speech with (approximately):

"Before you start to get concerned, don't worry. I promise you this speech won't last any longer....than Britney Spears in rehab."

Totally brought down the house. Especially topical at the time, too. The part of the message this blog took home is that it hurts developmentally disabled people when you use the term "retard" derisively. This blog has tried to make it a point to avoid this phrase and believes it has been successful for the most part.

The hometown Rams beat up on Drexel after the half, so Drexel's NCAA tournament hopes, at least as far as their fans were concerned, had ended. (As it turned out, they probably should have made it over Arkansas or Stanford in hindsight).

In the nightcap, George Mason broke out the gold jerseys and upset favored Old Dominion, prompting George Mason's student section to chant "Lady Monarchs" at ODU, which this blog found funny. ODU's women's basketball program is a powerhouse, but Pun City is sure their men's program doesn't like to hear that.

The crowd of 11,200 was the first sellout in CAA Tournament history, so that was pretty awesome to be a part of. This blog had now been part of record crowds at the Colonial and Missouri Valley tournaments. A cool day, setting up a final between George Mason and Virginia Commonwealth tomorrow.