HARTFORD — The first time Geno Auriemma coached a game at the building now known as PeoplesBank Arena, there were likely more people working than cheering. Every bounce of the ball, swish of the net, ref’s whistle and directive from the sideline reverberated through the building.
“Our first game ever at the old Hartford Civic Center was a 5 o’clock game and the men’s game was right after that, because there were no tickets to buy,” Auriemma remembered. “If you bought a ticket to the men’s game and wanted to come a little bit earlier, you got to watch a little bit of the women’s game. Obviously, it goes without saying, that other than the (security) people with the yellow jackets that had to be there, there was nobody there.”
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That day was Jan. 18, 1986 and it was common for schools in those days to schedule women’s basketball games before the men played. At UConn, neither team was, nor had yet even given a hint of the juggernauts they would become far in the future. In fact, that was in the middle of Auriemma’s only losing season among 41 on the job.
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So the UConn women played Pitt at 5 p.m., as a warm-up act to the main event, the UConn men vs. St. John’s.
“It wasn’t necessarily a bad thing,” Auriemma said. “You just wanted some exposure, you wanted people to see you play.”
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The men, coached then by Dom Perno, lost to St. John’s in the second game. UConn tried the doubleheader format again six weeks later, the women lost to St. John’s on Feb. 22, again with just a smattering of fans, the men to Providence.
“So you think back to that, and we had a couple of those (doubleheaders) in the early years, to now,” Auriemma said. “You might have two sold out games in one night. Now, how far things have come, everything we do is a standalone game and tickets are hard to find.”
Different times, different circumstances, and much different levels of hype and revenue involved, UConn will stage a doubleheader in downtown Hartford on Monday. The college basketball season will begin with the UConn women playing Cornell at 5 p.m., the men to play Gardner-Webb at 9 p.m.
This time, tickets are separate and the arena will have to be emptied between games, and the teams’ game-day routines and logistics are far more complicated than they were in 1986.
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“This is the first time we’ve done something like this since I’ve been here,” said Jayden Ross, senior on the men’s team. “So I’m kind of interested to see how that first game kind of transitions into the second. …I think it will be really cool for the state to have something like this, I think it will be real exciting.”
The Pratt Street establishments will put don their festival attire for fans who are making a full day and night of it, Urban Lodge Brewing Co, Vaughn’s Public House, Sunberry Restaurant and Bar, will all be opening at 3 p.m. The other restaurants surrounding the arena will be open for lunch and hanging out before, between and after the games.
“Typically, we’re not open on Monday,” said Mike Smith, GM at Urban Lodge. “We can’t not open with both teams playing. Early on, we’ll have a limited menu before the women’s game. Between the game, we’ll have a more limited menu, some burgers, sandwiches, tenders, because there’ll be so many people in here we can’t have the kitchen overwhelmed. … What’s really going to be different for us is between games, the middle time, we’ll have people leaving the women’s game and people coming before the men’s game, so it’s those two crowds merging into one. Probably about 7:30 it’s going to be pretty crazy in here.”
Both games should draw about 15,000 fans downtown, with some overlap. The 5 p.m. start on a weekday will not be ideal for fans trying to get to the women’s game after work; the 9 p.m. start for the men on a school night will make it difficult for students, including the UConn women’s team, to stay to the end.
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“Nine o’clock? And it’s a school night,” senior KK Arnold said. “But I love our men’s team. You probably might see us. Being a senior, some of my classes are later … we’ll see. I think I’ll be able to make that one.”
The UConn men will be in the building, but in the midst of their pregame routines while the women are playing Monday night. “We can peak out there and see how they’re doing from time to time,” men’s point guard Silas Demary Jr. said. “But even if we’re not (in the stands), we’ll be letting them know they have our support.”
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Back in the mid-1980s, it probably made financial sense to have both teams play. Since the building was already going to rented, open and staffed for one game, playing two would’ve been a good value. UConn did it once the following season in 1987-88, this time UConn’s women beat CCSU, the men, now in Jim Calhoun’s first season, lost to Virginia.
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By the mid-1990s, even after Gampel Pavilion opened on campus, the men were becoming a national power and played more frequently at the Civic Center. The women, after their first national championship, played Tennessee in Hartford on Jan. 5, 1997 and it was one of the toughest tickets of the decade — more than 16,000 squeezed in.
“Somebody said, ‘we should play downtown,’ so we played Tennessee,” Auriemma said. “‘Is it going to be a doubleheader? No, it’s its own game. And that went great. Then we said, ‘we’ve got to play another game down here.’ So the game was Maine, and somebody said ‘nobody’s going to go’ because Maine’s not a high-profile game, not a big name. But they were good and it was sold out. And after that it became playing half the games downtown.”
The men and women, both of whom split their home games between Hartford and M&T Bank Center at Gampel Pavilion on campus, have staged periodic doubleheaders in the years since, when schedules intersected. The last was 2022 when the women played NC State and the men Delaware State, both victories. Those game were tipped at 1 and 5 p.m. on a weekend.
“I don’t think we’ll ever see a day when one ticket gets you two games,” Auriemma said. “You have the women’s basketball crowd, and the men’s basketball crowd, but there’s an awful lot of crossover. Middle of February, you have a game at 2 o’clock and a game at 5, that’d be pretty cool.”
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In an era when UConn is looking to bring in more revenue to pay athletes via name-image-likeness and revenue-sharing, single-ticket doubleheaders are not a blast to return from the past unless, of course, they’re part of a package that factors in the price of both games. But given the university’s unique basketball brand, with 12 national championships for the women and six for the men, there could be more benefits in synergy between the programs, especially in creating buzz and business for downtown Hartford.
“You’ve got to go through that game day experience,” men’s coach Dan Hurley said. “I know there’s going to be some jostling, getting our stuff, their stuff in and out. For both programs it’s probably going to be like a little bit inconvenient. But it’s good for the city, good for the business, good for the restaurants and the bars, good for Hartford to have a lot of business in the city. So it’s certainly worth it for both programs to benefit the great City of Hartford.”
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