This week not only kicked off the ‘07-’08 Basketball Season, but we also hosted the A10 Women’s Soccer Tournament where our ladies were seeded #1 and had a legitimate shot at advancing to the NCAA tourney for the first time in over 14 years.
The weekend started out with a victory over Richmond in the semi-finals of the women’s soccer tourney, but we didn’t find out until we headed up to the 49ers vs High Point men’s basketball game. For a random friday night vs. a Big South team like High Point, coming off of a losing season, the crowd was amazing. It was the best Halton Arena crowd in 2 years. There was every excuse for a poor turnout.
It is tough to think about 2004-2005 when we played Cinci, Memphis, Depaul… etc… out in CUSA. We sold out the last 4 games of the year. But the uncertainty that comes when switching conferences brought no recruits and we’ve suffered for 2 years. Now that we have the most talented Niner team I’ve ever seen, we have a shot at doing something special this year. And back then our fans rarely came out to see the Niners play random opponents, they only cared when we played big name teams. We have finally turned the corner and Charlotte’s support is out there and in force.
The game vs High Point was sloppy, and when the Panthers went up 13 points early in the game we all thought it was over. But we rallied back and if we’d hit half of our free throws it wouldn’t have even been a game. With 3000+ students at the game it was loud and energetic. Now we’ll take on App. St. Monday and we’ve gotta beat ‘em.
On Sunday the Lady Niners took down Fordham 3-2 to take an emotional storm into the NCAA tourney. We’ll find out Monday (around the time when we take on the Mountaineers) who we’ll play and where we’ll play.
For now, we’ll stay excited to be Charlotte 49ers and we’ll get ready to show Boone what a real basketball team looks like. I’ll be getting to the game Monday as soon as I can because there are so many students coming out to the game, you have to be there 2 hours before to get the best seats!
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November 14th, 2007 at 3:53 pm
[...] November 14th, 2007 in My Personal Life Friday evening after getting out of the Charlotte 49ers v High Point basketball game, I realized something terrible had occurred. My cell phone’s battery died. The first thing I [...]