Binghamton Bearcats 53 at UMass Lowell River Hawks 79 (NCAA Basketball, America East) - March 1, 2025

I interrupted my trip to New England to return to NYC for a day before heading right back to Massachusetts for a Hawks hoops doubleheader, with the River Hawks and Skyhawks both home on Saturday afternoon. The first stop was Lowell, about 45 minutes north of Boston. I had been here three years ago when the River Hawks played at Tsongas Center, but really wanted to see the much more intimate Costello Athletic Center. I had arrived quite early, so took the time to walk to the Rendezvous Lounge, a bar that opens at 8 a.m. and is just over the city line in Dracut. On the way back, I was able to capture my return to Lowell, which will be having a big celebration next year. 

The parking lot for Costello is off Riverside Street and is free evenings and weekends. From there, you walk up a staircase to reach the front of the building.

There is a small desk inside the front door where they were selling tickets, with general admission costing $15; a hard stub is provided.

Costello opened in 1964 and was renovated in 2019. It has a capacity of 957 according to the university, and 2,000 according to Wikipedia; on this day attendance was 755 and there weren't that many empty seats, so I'll go with the lower figure. If that is accurate, it would make it the third smallest gym in Division I behind G.B. Hodge Center (South Carolina Upstate, 878) and Buccaneer Field House (Charleston Southern, 881), neither of which I have been to yet.

There is a very cool Hall of Fame where each inductee has an etched likeness, except one poor soul in the middle. There are also a lot of trophies, including a couple of national titles, though these are from their time in Division II (they began the process of moving to D-I in 2013). 

Despite the small size of the facility, there is quite a bit of history here. The first black professional basketball player was Harry 'Bucky' Lew, who was born in Lowell and there is a display acknowledging this fact.

The school has had a few athletes go on to bigger things, with Mike LaValliere the most notable; he was the catcher in the famous Sid Bream slide back in 1992.

The Kennedy Cup Challenge is the competition between UMass Lowell and UMass Amherst, with the school that wins the most head-to-head battles each school year awarded the trophy. 

As I was touring, I ran into Rowdy the River Hawk, who was kind enough to pose for a picture.

There are two sides to the gym and to get from one side to the other, you have to walk down a very narrow hallway that has pictures of past teams on the walls. At either end are concession stands serving basic fare and they even take cash.

Inside the gym, there are two distinct sections on one side; with five rows of benches down below and about seven rows of benches up top. All seats are general admission, so these lower seats are essentially courtside as you can see below. The two areas are not connected, so to move to one, you must exit the seating bowl and re-enter. On the other side, where the team benches and scorers table are located, there are no seats down below. 

For the second half, I moved down to these seats and enjoyed sitting as close to a college basketball game as I ever have. This is really a bandbox and the crowd noise echoes around, making for a great atmosphere. The team has not played at Tsongas Center this year (I'm not sure if that is permanent) and I think they should stay here as they enjoy quite a home advantage, finishing the season 11-4 here against D-I opponents with three of those losses by a point (they were 3-10 on the road).

The upper level is still very close and there are no bad seats here; at the top you might have the raised baskets in your field of vision, though they do not block the action on the floor.

It was senior night and there were seven players honoured, which is quite a few these days with the transfer portal leading many md-major players to move to better teams for their final year or two. It was an excellent ceremony with each senior walking out with his family to receive a framed jersey while his accomplishments were announced. Most senior day ceremonies are similar, but I found this one to be a bit more impressive for some reason.

Overall, Costello is a fantastic place to watch college basketball. You are right on top of the game if you are up top, or right beside the players if you are down below, something that often costs ten times as much at other venues. UMass Lowell also has a hockey team that plays at Tsongas (they had a night game but I had to get to Stonehill), and the PWHL's Boston Fleet play there as well, so you might be able to see a doubleheader if you are lucky. And if you get there early, you can have an 8 a.m. beer at the Rendezvous.

The Game

Binghamton was visiting with a 7-7 record in the America East, while UML was 5-9. But it was senior day and that was certainly motivation for the River Hawks. Senior day pushed the start time to 1:10 and I needed a quick game as it was an hour to Stonehill, whose game was set for 4:30. 

The first half started slowly and after seven minutes, it was only 11-9 for Lowell, but they then went on a 15-2 run over six minutes, later pushing the lead to 22 before cooling off late in the period as the Bearcats scored the final 8 points to make it 40-26 at the break. It was a very fast half with only six fouls called and three free throws.

Any chance of a comeback was quickly extinguished when the River Hawks scored the first 12 points of the second stanza, making it 52-26, in other words, a doubling of the score. Binghamton's first basket came at 15:31 and the rest of the game was pretty equal as UML rolled 79-53, the 26-point margin matching that early in the half. 

The River Hawks shot 72.7% from inside and 42.9% from downtown, with 24 points coming off 8 Bearcat bobbles. The shooting numbers for Binghamton weren't horrible (53.1%, 27.8%) but they could only muster 7 points off 10 Lowell lapses, which accounts for much of the difference. Max Brooks (#10 above) was the star with 22 points on 10-13 shooting, all from inside the arc.

With only 18 fouls called, the refs made sure this was a quick game but as I scurried to leave, I was stopped as the visiting team uses the same door as the fans to get to their locker room. I had to wait for them to lollygag their way across the floor before I could get to my car and on the way to Stonehill. In the end, I arrived in plenty of time and will write about that in the next post.

Notes

If Tsongas is no longer a basketball venue, it will become inactive on my list. This has happened a few times with Hartford dropping to D-III, St. Francis Brooklyn shutting down their athletics department altogether, and Fairfield no longer playing in Bridgeport and it would reduce the number of venues in the quest by 1, even though I have already seen it. The hardest part about this quest is trying to remain current as schools often change their venue usage without public notice.

Best,

Sean