Bizzare venues begin with Vandy’s Memorial

By SETH LAMAR
Gold Standard Sports Editor
seth.c.lamar.ctr@mail.mil
College basketball venues are getting more bizarre by the year with games being played outside and even on an aircraft carrier. It’s certain that the NCAA in conjunction with ESPN, CBS or whatever other media giant decides what out-of-the-ordinary venue will drive up viewership will be the newest attention-getter in the sport.
Perhaps the idea of new ways to complicate the setting of basketball stems from one of the more peculiar, yet fascinating gyms in the country: Memorial Gym at Vanderbilt University.
I’m talking about the raised floor, shot clocks on pillars, benches on the baselines and a goofy mascot that looks like Patrick Stewart in a pirate hat roaming the areas where the coaches should be.
It’s one thing for a high school like Fort Knox to have such a set up (sans the mascot), but major college basketball?
Come on.
It’s time for Vanderbilt to conform to the norm and put the benches where everyone else’s is- on the sidelines.
The other side of this argument is tradition, but tradition for some can be mistaken for nothing more than antiquation to others. Sure, it’s a style that harkens back to the days when it was fashionable to see the upper –thigh of players and shoes that provide the look, comfort and bounce equivalent to that of a wingtip. Get with the times, Vandy.
Sure, there’s lots of tradition associated with one of the SEC’s more venerable venues, but it’s home to a seemingly exclusive fan base seldom seen anywhere else.
The Commodores’ fan base is like the wind, you can’t see it, but you know it’s out there, occasionally.
Built in 1952, Memorial Gym’s setup is as out of date as the day it was built and gives an underachieving team an added advantage. Commodores’ head coach Kevin Stallings is quick to complain about playing on Thursdays and Saturdays, but other coaches are beginning to tire of the added element and difficulty entailed by playing at Vanderbilt.
Playing in Memorial Gym is not like playing in a gym at all. That’s probably because when it was built, there was some debate over whether or not the building’s usage should be completely dedicated to basketball and the brilliant minds of Vanderbilt came up with the smorgasbord of confusion you saw as the setting for Saturday night’s game between the Kentucky Wildcats and the Commodores.
Kentucky head coach John Calipari mentioned in his post-game comments that if point guard Marquis Teague couldn’t hear or see the play call during the first half, he should just run a simple pick-and-roll play. The statement is telling about how Memorial Gym changes the game. We’re not talking about a gym with a few hundred people. We’re talking about more than 14,000 raucous fans on their feet screaming at the top of their lungs.
Playing at Vanderbilt is a test for most teams.
But for what?
The last time I checked, there isn’t a sport called long-distance screaming. Which is what coaches oftentimes find themselves haplessly doing for half the game at Memorial Gym.
Memorial Gym last hosted postseason play in the 1998 NCAA Tournament, but with the much-newer Bridgestone Arena minutes away and complaints from coaches, it was probably the last time Vandy will play host to such an event.
Obviously the Wildcats had the talent to counter a senior-laden team, but much of the SEC doesn’t this year. Change will not happen just because one school says something publically negative about the setup, but it needs to be changed in a manner that doesn’t take away from “Memorial Magic” and one of the best atmospheres in the SEC.
Sadly or thankfully, depending on your point of view, change likely will not happen due to today’s economics and feasibility.
When it comes to the feasibility for change, just look at what Vanderbilt came up with the first time around.