How was the A10 tourney experience in Brooklyn

[bills16]

For those that went to the A10 tourney, how was the overall experience in Brooklyn?

[Taj79]

Worked well for me. Hotel prices of course high. Weeknight rooms in AC went for like $69 or $79 whereas Brooklyn was $237. Team hotel was about a mile away; ours about 1/2 that. Walked the six blocks or so to the games every day. Can be like maneuvering a minefield of various stages of humanity but not too disconcerting. Barcaly's is in area of redevelopment. Lots of bars, restaurants and shops. And NYC never sleeps. Brooklyn is quite dirty. Big city, so you get what you get.

Barclay's very nice for very new. Closed upper deck and blocked empty seats with a curtain. Prices usual .. cheap seats in endzones of lower level for $25 or $35 based on when in tournamnet. Ushers require tickets into section but migration to better seats always was an option. Not a bad seat in house. No parking; must take subway or walk or cab it. Easy access to Manhatten and so on. Barclay's about a mile or two in off Brooklyn Bridge.

Missed all Thursday games by choice. Fine by me. Early Friday session allowed for ignoring evening session and hit dinner. Saturday was great game viewing. Sunday was obviously best.

Fandom: VCU brought most. Sunday was road game in hostile environment. We had likely second-most largest contigent. Maybe Butler says they did. It was close. Fourth largest went to Umass but I am willing to bet most of them drove down for Saturday once they upset Temple on Friday.

Arena prices: Typical. Large beer was $9.50. I didn't bother with anything outside of that. Local bars sold 16 ounce drafts for $5-$6. Pitchers were $16. Pacific Standard, bar where SLU had gatherings, had "craft" beers that changed daily with pints going for $6. Lots of bars were that -- just bars. No food.

Having been to AC, Cincinnati, Dayton, Louisville, Birmingham and Columbus, outside of thehotel prices all the rest was pretty equal. I'd go back.

[NH]

I was lucky enough to go with my brother and dad. We stayed about a mile and a half from Barclay's. Took the subway half the time walked the other half.

Brooklyn was a cool place. Taj already touched on a lot of the points I don't have much to add. Had some really good food though so if anyone is going they should hit me up for a spot or two.

A few anecdotes from AC:

Got to talk to Bonner and Anthony Drejaj. Both very nice and good representatives for the bball program. Bonner clearly had that friendly rivalry with Spike Lee which was entertaining to watch.

As far as the VCU fans go I have very mixed feelings. They are like a cult with all their songs and chants. Which I guess is normal for some college bball programs but like Taj said a lot of old people singing about Havoc kind of weirds me out. Talked with quite a few fans. Most were pretty nice people but they were all EXTREMELY confident. Had no doubt they were a better team than us in almost all cases. Also seemed to hold their school in a much higher esteem than most people do. I have a lot of friends from Virginia and none of them ever considered VCU. But talking to their fans you'd think they thought it was Harvard. But like I said some fans were very nice and they seemed pretty knowledgeable. And they do have some right to be confident.

Their band was very good. Also very douchy. My 14 yr-old brother was lucky enough to be selected to do a shooting competition on the court. Sam's actually a pretty good bball player relative to your average kid but nerves got the best of him and he didn't fare too well in the thing. Not a big deal of course it was a cool experience to be out there on the court. But as we were walking off the VCU band members were heckling him, saying he did an awful job and that he sucked. Even the Nets officials started yelling back at the band telling them to stop. It was very classless. Had I not been so caught up in the game things may have gotten messier. Didn't faze my brother, fortunately enough.

I hope to make it back to Brooklyn next year. Still holding out for Indy and possibly Atl this year. A shame I can't join y'all in San Jose.

[redbirdfan]

We stayed at the Downtown Marriott in the Financial District (about $600 for 3 nights) The place had been taken over by VCU Fans-all were friendly! In fact we traveled to the game with some. It was 4 subway stops to Barclay. $2.50 each way, We liked our area, it was easy to go to the games and travel around the city to see the sites. Lots of little bars and eating places and close to the 9/11 Memorial Site and Battery Park.

Friday SLU hosted the Pre-game Party. It was in the Barclay Center. Food was provided and it was quite tasty. Soda and beer was on your own. Saturday and Sunday the pre-game get together was held at a local bar, Pacific Standard. Food was provided by an outside place. There was plenty of food, wings, mini burgers to go around. Again, the food served was good! We did not attend Sundays party. (running late from a late night out on the town!)

Barclay Center Staff was exceptionally friendly. Many were rooting for the Billikens-even though they didn't have a clue what one was! Food inside was the normal over priced items you would find at any sporting event.

I thought VCU was classless at the game. Booing the basketball team, our band and cheerleaders. They put Billikens in the men's urinals. They had "Cody Ellis is ugly" signs, and they sent out some nasty tweets about hating or killling Cody Ellis...I just don't understand all the "hate" he was getting!!

Their band would replay songs immediately after SLU's Band played one-as if to say they were better! Or they would start playing when our band was already playing. There is a method to "March Madness" it's called taking turns.

VCU was there in BIG numbers! I have to tell you after seeing them all while we were waiting for our tickets- we were worried! They definitely don't lack on Spirit because they brought it! They had about 2000 people there on Sat. and someone paid for several more buses for the students to come in on Sunday!

We had a 5:40 PM flight out of Newark. We figured we needed to leave at 3:00 to made it on time for our flight. 3:00 came and the game was so intense, we decided on the next "time-out". That came and we headed out with heavy hearts not knowing what the outcome would be as we headed back to Manhattan to pick our luggage up at the hotel and catch our cab. As soon as we exited the subway we were ecstatic to find out they won and sad that we could not have stayed to watch the presentation that comes with A10victory! Had we stayed, there would have been no way we would have made it to our plane on time. The Holland Tunnel was jammed with people trying to leave NYC! With the 2 basketball tournaments, St. Patrick's Day Parade, the NYC 1/2 Marathon all going on that weekend, traffic was a nightmare! Thank goodness for our CRAZY cab driver! We made it with about 5 minutes of wait time for boarding! But we were definitely nervous about not making our flight!

We plan to go back next year, we will probably stay at the same location or they have a new Holiday Inn going up right next door. We will look for a later flight next year! It was a great location and a great time! GO BILLS!