After witnessing Wake wobble against Virginia, I drove back to Durham, NC, flew to Manchester, and drove to Durham, NH. In this case, however, NC stood for Not Cold (it was 70 degrees) while NH stood for Not Hot (32 and piles of snow on the ground, as you can see below). The University of New Hampshire is located in Durham, the quintessential New England college town (population 16,000; enrollment 14,000) and I was there to visit Lundholm Gymnasium, home of their basketball teams.
Lundholm is part of the UNH Field House and was opened in 1938, with a capacity of 3,000. Its name honours Carl Lundholm, athletic director at the school from 1939 to 1963. I was staying at the far end of town, which is about a 20-minute walk to the gym. Fortunately, the school provides a free bus service which lets you off right in front of the venue, though of course, most fans drive and park in one of the nearby free lots. The box office is just inside the front doors and tickets were a surprisingly expensive $23 for general admission.
Still, once I had time to tour, I realized that the admission price was well worth it because Lundholm contains the UNH Sports Gallery, one of the best collection of team photos you will see. It is a comprehensive compilation of photos from men's and women's sports teams from 1894 to the present. It was completed in 2007 and involved countless hours of research by many volunteers who helped to establish the identity of over 25,000 team members. Photos line the halls outside the gym and the quality of some of them is unbelievable; it looks like they were taken last week instead of over 100 years ago. Take the time to appreciate the effort that has gone into this fascinating display. One example that stood out to me was that they had a women's rifle team as far back as 1947, but you can find many more.
There was another interesting tidbit I found up a staircase: the NCAA Elite 89 Award (now the Elite 90 Award). This is presented to the student-athlete with the highest GPA participating at the finals site of each of the 90 NCAA championships. It is nice to see that the NCAA is still paying attention to the student aspect of student-athletes; I wish these awards would get more publicity on ESPN and other broadcasters.
Turning around, the staircase has a pretty cool painting of a wildcat to add a bit of colour to it.
Inside the gym proper, there are five narrow sections on either sideline with UNH painted in white on both sides, and no baseline seats.
There are courtside seats across from the benches so you will want to avoid the first couple of rows of benches so you can see above those who are sitting there. Otherwise, there isn't a bad seat in the place.
The band, which is very active and adds a lot to an already enjoyable atmosphere, sits in some of the best seats in Section H, center court on the side opposite the cameras. Avoid sitting low here if you enjoy having your hearing after the game.
There are two dot matrix boards on the walls at each baseline, one that includes player points and fouls, and the other that just has the basic information.
UNH hoops has not had much success, having yet to make March Madness. But they did enjoy a bit of history when they went to the CIT in 2015; the game that they lost at NJIT was the
first to use the 30-second clock.
Overall, Lundholm is a great place to visit. I really enjoyed my brief time in Durham as well, which has a few nice bars and pizzerias and is very walkable, as I found out when returning to my hotel. The photo gallery is incredible and worth stopping for even if there is no game. Thankfully for me, there was one and it turned out to be pretty good.
The Game
The Maine Black Bears were visiting in the Border Battle (UNH is just 10 miles from the state line and New Hampshire is the only state that borders Maine) coming in at 8-5 in the America East, while UNH was 6-8. The two had met in Orono a month prior with the Black Bears mauling the Wildcats 71-46.
The first half was fantastic, with nine lead changes and five ties, and only nine fouls called as the refs let them play. Down 28-27, Maine's Christopher Mantis hit a three and this started an 11-0 run; a couple of free throws from Wildcat Sami Pissis (#0 above) ended the half with his team trailing 38-30.
Early in the second, UNH climbed back within three after Davide Poser knocked down a bomb, but they could not get closer. Mantis quickly hit back-to-back threes and suddenly it was 53-44 at the under-12. Coming out of the timeout, A.J. Lopez hit another trey for the Black Bears and the Wildcats spent the rest of the half chipping away, and after a Poser layup, they were down 66-62 with 1:22 remaining.
New Hampshire used their foul to give, but then allowed Maine to run the clock down to 33 seconds when Kellen Tynes hit a dagger three while being fouled on the play. Tynes missed the freebie, but the game was essentially over, with Maine holding on to win 73-66. Kudos to their head coach Chris Markwood for leaving all three timeouts on the board.
The Black Bears shot an incredible 12/23 (52.2%) from downtown, far better than their 15/35 (42.9%) mark from inside the arc. The game has changed and it won't be long until the majority of shots are three-pointers and there will be a four-point line. Tynes led the winners with 16 points, while Pissis paced the vanquished with 24. There were only 26 fouls in the contest, which was one of the better ones I have seen and certainly more enjoyable than the one at Wake Forest the night before.
Notes
This was the second and final hoops venue in New Hampshire after I visited Dartmouth three years back. I have two left in New England (UMass Lowell primary and Stonehill) and will see those on Saturday.
Best,
Sean
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