The 2017-18 college basketball season has come to an end and we’ve crowned Villanova as the champions this year. It was a fun season for me as well. Here’s a few of the highlights: 1. Visiting Gallagher-Iba Arena This is one of the 7 historic college gyms on my list to visit, so when the Longhorns had a game on a Saturday I knew it was a trip I wanted to make. Even though the Longhorns couldn’t hold on to win the game, the trip was overall great. We got to see the empty gym Friday night before the game and were invited to stay and watch UT practice. Eating at Eskimo Joe’s was a great experience too with some amazing cheese fries! (I was also able to get into 2 other gyms on my travels this season, Oklahoma and Harvard.) 2. Launching the Weekly Highlights A part of what I wanted to do on Red Phog is promote college basketball and keep people informed throughout the season. One of the ways I wanted to do that was share each week 5 games to watch, show the weekly conference standings, and highlight the top individual performers in the nation. I launched that series of posts in January and continued through the end of the season. Next season expect more of this with some new things to go along with the regular posts. My hope is to share more visuals and focus on making black and white stats more interesting and easy to read for everyone. 3. Attended Final Four #7 This is the 7th Final Four I’ve attended and it marked 20 years since going to my first one in 1998, which was also in San Antonio. I usually root for the top teams to make it each year because the fans always travel well and it enhances the environment. This year though it was still a lot of fun with a different mix of teams. Because of Easter my dad wasn’t able to come down until Sunday afternoon but a friend and I enjoyed the semi final games and the festivities on Saturday. On Monday we made the most of the day and even got on tv in the crowd behind the ESPN Game Day set. San Antonio is a great place to host the final weekend of the tournament because everything centers around the River Walk. There’s always crowds of people and live television sets around every corner. It was a great way to end the season! Next year I will continue to post the weekly highlights but hope to add a few new articles and features along the way. Keep checking in over the summer because I will be sharing my favorite basketball books for your summer reading list and will create a guide to the NBA draft featuring the top college basketball players. Thanks for following along and I'm excited about the future of Red Phog!
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