The Baltimore Arena is the place to be Saturday afternoon. The whole country will be able to see that.
There will be two nationally ranked basketball teams in action, No. 11 Maryland hosting No. 5 Massachusetts.
A sellout crowd -- the game was sold out almost as soon as tickets went on sale last summer -- will be crammed into the Arena.
Maryland's infectious pep band will be playing. Seventeen pro scouts are already credentialed. A national TV audience will be looking on.
There aren't many things as exciting as college basketball, and this game promises to be a memorable one. It's more than a game; it's a happening.
It's great that we have Maryland-UMass here, but there should be more basketball in the Arena.
Why not?
This city is a basketball hotbed. Kids from Baltimore are playing at colleges all over the country. The NBA now has a bunch of local players.
The Washington Bullets play four games in the Arena every year. All of them sell out, another measure of basketball interest here.
There'll be another special college basketball attraction at the Arena March 16 and 18, when the first two rounds of the NCAA tournament are played here.
UMBC athletic director Charlie Brown deserves credit for going out and bringing that here, but this is a rare thing for Baltimore. In fact, it's a first.
There's only one University of Maryland, only one team of national stature in this state that can sell out the Arena any time it comes -- as the Terps did last year against Towson State and two years ago against Oklahoma.
But there are other Division I college teams in and around our town, the best of which is Coppin State.
Coppin will go anywhere and play anybody. Already in this young season Coppin has played at St. John's and at Kansas, which is No. l,6p6,16l 4 in the country.
People who know basketball say Coppin, which lost, 78-73, would have beaten the Big East's St. John's if the game had been played anywhere but at the New York school's on-campus Alumni Hall.
Not enough Baltimore people get to see coach Ron "Fang" Mitchell's team. The West North Avenue college's Coppin Center holds 3,000, but Coppin deserves a grander showcase. Only four miles away, the 12,500-seat Baltimore Arena sits empty some nights and weekend afternoons.
Why can't Baltimore put on college doubleheaders in the Arena?
The model for that sort of thing is Philadelphia's Big Five games at Penn's Palestra that were so popular 20 years ago featuring Penn, La Salle, Villanova, St. Joseph's and Temple.
Why couldn't we do the same sort of thing here with Towson State, Loyola, Morgan, UMBC and, of course, Coppin State? Mount St. Mary's and Navy are plenty close enough to participate.
"Conceptually, it's a good idea," says Loyola athletic director Joe Boylan, who is finalizing plans for his team to play Notre Dame at the Arena next Dec. 9.
"There's great interest in college basketball here, but I feel that until you fill the building you have you shouldn't be worrying about playing in other places.
"We played UMBC in the Arena last year and drew nobody. It doesn't do anybody any good to do that."
For sure, Loyola, Towson and UMBC have a hard time drawing even 1,000 people to many home games. That's more reason to double up -- 1,200 from this school, 1,000 from that one, 800 from another. First thing you know, you're playing before 5,000
spectators.
"It could be done," says jack of all basketball trades Paul Baker, who promoted some college basketball games in the Baltimore Street arena with modest success a few years ago.
"What you'd need is a major sponsor -- say, a bank that would put up $200,000 to put on five double headers. Then a promoter would have to line up the teams.
"If you're going to bring in out-of-town teams to play against local colleges, they'll have to get guarantees. That can run into a lot of money."
In a city like ours that has no ice hockey and no NBA team (not to mention no NFL team), there's a terrible sports void.
It doesn't have to be that way with all the local interest there is in basketball and with so many Division I schools looking for ways to gain visibility and make a few bucks while they're at it.
+ Or at least they should be.