Uhhh...are we playing basketball?

Last night we were invited to attend the South Carolina vs. Tennessee men's basketball game in a private suite at the Colonial Life Arena. It was the first game I've ever gone to that wasn't at Rupp Arena. I now understand why Rupp Arena is the greatest place in the world to attend a basketball game. I forgot the camera, and was kicking myself all night long that I had no way of documenting our strange experience. When we arrived downtown less than 30 minutes before the game Columbia looked kind of like this:We pulled in to an unattended, mostly vacant, $1.50/hour parking garage across from the arena. That, and the traffic free drive into downtown, was our first clue that we weren't in Basketball Country anymore. The suite was lovely, free food and drinks in a private box overlooking a deserted arena. Everything was underwhelming in comparison to UK. No pyrotechnic show when they annouced the team, no crowd participation chants, no celebrity guest appearances, no national championship cheerleaders (at one point two male cheerleaders made a weak attempt at lifting their mascot, a far cry from the giant wildcat topped pyramid our squad pulls off each game), no banners hanging from the rafters, no victory for the home team. Colonial Life Arena holds 18,000 and by our guesstimation there was maybe 8,000 unenthusiastic fans there. It was fun watching a game where you don't care about the outcome and I enjoyed spending some time with my new co-workers outside of work, but like I told my bored co-workers, if you want to go to a real basketball game, go to Kentucky.