Newest desert sports tradition takes flight as basketball classic thrills Thanksgiving crowd
Two hours before the game, Kevin and Tracy Marvin of Grosse Pointe, Mich., stood in the parking lot waiting to see their Michigan State Spartans take on the University of Arizona in the first college basketball game ever played at Acrisure Arena.
“It was a good reason to turn it into a vacation in Palm Springs,” Kevin said, wearing a green Michigan State sweatshirt.
“This is our first time here, and we love it,” Tracy said of the near-perfect Thanksgiving day weather in the desert.
A new Thanksgiving tradition in the Coachella Valley sprang to life Thursday with the first Division I men’s college basketball game played at Acrisure Arena, still less than one year old. Nationally televised and featuring two top-25 ranked teams, the Michigan State-Arizona game did more than bring a new event to the desert. It also added to the increasing level of excitement and prestige the arena has brought to the desert.
More: High energy! Arizona tops Michigan State, 74-68, in inaugural Acrisure Classic
“It’s just 400 miles from our house,” said Ken Wong of Tucson, who admits he was living in a house divided for the game. Wong went to graduate school at Michigan State, but generally roots for anything involving the Arizona Wildcats. But Thursday he was wearing a Michigan State shirt while his wife Marge was wearing a shirt with an Arizona logo.
“She roots for Arizona, absolutely,” Wong said. “Football, men’s and women’s basketball.”
Both coaches in Thursday's game saw the potential of the new tradition.
"Awesome effort by our guys in an awesome environment," Arizona coach Tommy Lloyd said after his team's 74-68 win. "It was really cool playing here for the first time. I don't know if there has been any other really college basketball game, an NBA preseason game. But for us, first kinda big-time college basketball game, I think the community really showed up. I could see this becoming a great great neutral site, for not only Arizona but maybe other teams."
The Coachella Valley once had a tradition of major sports at Thanksgiving for more than two decades starting in 1986. The Skins Game was a two-day big-money golf event played at various courses in the desert. Even with names like Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, Tiger Woods, Fred Couples and even Annika Sorenstam, the Skins Game was a pure television play, looking for ratings against holiday football and happy for whatever gallery showed up.
Visitors from around the country
The Acrisure Classic, as it is now called, will be different. With plans to turn the week into a Coachella Valley version of tournaments like the Maui Classic, part of the job of the arena and organizations like Visit Greater Palm Springs will be to play eager host to fans from across the country. Thursday’s inaugural game – two more games were scheduled for Friday and two more for Saturday with other NCAA Division I teams – showed that fans from Michigan State and Arizona were willing to travel to the desert for a top-level basketball game.
“I’m just here for the game,” joked Pam Ruegg, an endowed chair at Michigan State and a professor of veterinarian sciences at the university, laughing that the game was also a good excuse to see her son who lives in the Coachella Valley. Ruegg said she doesn’t often travel for games, but she has a connection to the team beyond being employed by the school.
“The head coach, Tom Izzo, he’s from the Upper Peninsula,” Ruegg said. “So am I. We’re called Yoopers.”
More: 'Like Maui, but bigger.' Annual week-long college basketball tourney coming to Acrisure
The game itself was colorful, with Keshad Johnson hammering home a dunk early in the game like a champagne bottle christening a ship. The stands were pretty much a 50-50 split of Michigan State green and Arizona red. But there were also assorted turkey hats and fans with signs and one man in a very dapper sports coat covered in Arizona logos. Merchandise just for the Acrisure Classic was on sale, but there were also T-shirt giveaways during the timeouts and plenty of work to keep the crowd engaged.
The crowd of 9,112 roared as Arizona started to pull away late in the first half, then roared again as Michigan State cut the lead to seven points, then screamed as Caleb Love of Arizona hit a 3-pointer at the first-half buzzer.
It was announced during the game Thursday that USC and San Diego State will be part of the Acrisure Classic in 2024. There is already talk on social media that teams like Washington State and Texas Christian could be part of the expanded tournament set for Nov. 28 and 29 next year. The four women's teams joining the tradition next year on Nov. 26 and 27 will be Cal, Arizona State, Vanderbilt and Michigan State.
If Thursday was a trial balloon for future Acrisure Classics, the day was a success. If the event is to be expanded, there will need to be some tweaks to the game-day experience, with more fans and more media descending on the desert.
For now, the desert’s new Thanksgiving tradition is off to a flying start. If it has the long-term success of the Skins Game, desert basketball fans should be happy for a long, long time.
Larry Bohannan is the golf writer for The Desert Sun. You can contact him at (760) 778-4633 or at larry.bohannan@desertsun.com. Follow him on Facebook or on Twitter at @larry_bohannan. Support local journalism. Subscribe to The Desert Sun.
This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: Michigan State, Arizona tip off new desert basketball tradition
