“I was in almost from the beginning,” Byington said. “I like to think outside the box, so to play the first college basketball game, really any game of the season is, awesome. This is such a unique event, and to do it in Charleston, a place that means a lot to me and my family, was just an added bonus.”\u00a0<\/p>\n
Howe knew they\u2019d need a local flavor and quickly added The Citadel and College of Charleston. The two downtown schools are not scheduled to play during the regular season this year.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe thought it was a fantastic idea and a unique opportunity for our program,\u201d said College of Charleston coach John Groce.<\/p>\n
After the initial field was announced publicly, Howe started to get calls from schools from across the country.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s when we thought about adding another game,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
When the opportunity to land the South Carolina women\u2019s team to the event, Howe didn\u2019t hesitate to add one of the nation\u2019s top women\u2019s program to the festivities.<\/p>\n
“It’s such a beautiful venue, and the floor looks great,” Staley said after the Gamecocks worked out on Saturday morning. “The court is in great shape, not slippery at all. I think the fans will have a great time, and it will be something that’s going to be repeated for years to come. Hopefully the weather cooperates and it is like this (Sunday) when we play.”<\/p>\n
The tickets that remained sold out quickly after the Gamecocks were added to the event.<\/p>\n
Howe can see other blue blood programs taking part in the event in the future.<\/p>\n
\u201cClemson and South Carolina would be obvious choices, but we think that schools like Duke and North Carolina would be part of future invitationals,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Basketball court over green clay<\/p>\n
Before the idea of putting on an outdoor basketball could even be considered, Howe had to make sure Credit One Stadium\u2019s center court would have a big enough footprint to accommodate a regulation floor.<\/p>\n
It did.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe went out and did all the measurements,\u201d Howe said. \u201cWe knew if there wasn\u2019t enough room for a regulation basketball court, the idea was dead in the water.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"“I was in almost from the beginning,” Byington said. “I like to think outside the box, so to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":845459,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3723],"tags":[7,217,99911,99909,231,772,1544,99910,54623],"class_list":["post-845458","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ncaa-basketball","tag-basketball","tag-college-basketball","tag-credit-one-stadium","tag-linku-invitational","tag-ncaa","tag-ncaa-basketball","tag-ncaab","tag-outdoor-game","tag-south-carolina-women"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/117345544026368680","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/845458","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=845458"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/845458\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/845459"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=845458"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=845458"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=845458"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}