{"id":84404,"date":"2013-10-07T16:44:23","date_gmt":"2013-10-07T20:44:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=84404"},"modified":"2013-10-11T09:30:02","modified_gmt":"2013-10-11T13:30:02","slug":"uconn-basketball-to-play-at-webster-bank-arena","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2013\/10\/uconn-basketball-to-play-at-webster-bank-arena\/","title":{"rendered":"UConn Basketball To Play At Webster Bank Arena"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"From<\/a>
From left, Bridgeport mayor Bill Finch ’79 (CANR), men’s basketball head coach Kevin Ollie ’95 (CLAS), and Howard Saffan, president of Harbor Yard Sports and Entertainment, after a press event on Oct. 7, announcing that the men’s and women’s basketball teams will each play a regular-season game at the Webster Bank Arena in Bridgeport during the 2013-2014 season. (Stephen Slade ’89 (SFA) for UConn)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Harbor Yard Sports and Entertainment, Webster Bank Arena, and UConn Athletics announced today that the UConn men\u2019s and women\u2019s basketball teams will each play a regular-season game at Webster Bank Arena in Bridgeport, Conn. this season.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a historic moment for Huskies basketball and Webster Bank Arena,\u201d Harbor Yard Sports and Entertainment president Howard Saffan said. \u201cWe look forward to a long, successful partnership in the years to come. We cannot wait to see the Huskies here in December.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is not just about a basketball game, this is about economic development in the city of Bridgeport and this is about the children of the state of Connecticut.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The UConn men\u2019s team will host Eastern Washington on Saturday, Dec. 28, at 1 p.m., while the defending NCAA champion UConn women\u2019s team will host the Temple Owls in an American Athletic Conference game on Saturday, Jan. 11, at noon. It will be the first home game for the UConn men played outside of Storrs or Hartford since a 1987 game against Syracuse at the New Haven Coliseum.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>
The UConn women’s basketball team won the regional finals of the 2013 NCAA Tournament at Webster Bank Arena in Bridgeport. (Bob Stowell ’70 (CLAS) for UConn)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The UConn women have never before played a regular-season home game away from Storrs or Hartford, but have played in Webster Bank Arena in five separate NCAA Tournaments \u2013 the first two rounds of the 2004, 2008, and 2012 tournaments and the Regional Finals in 2006 and 2013. The Huskies own a 9-1 record in the building.<\/p>\n

\u201cFairfield County is home to our Stamford campus and is critical to the University as we continue to grow, achieve our goals, and serve the entire state of Connecticut,\u201d President Susan Herbst said in a statement. \u201cWe’re thrilled to bring UConn basketball to Bridgeport to enhance our presence in the area and contribute to the city.\u201d<\/p>\n

The two games were formally announced Monday morning at a news conference at the Webster Bank Arena.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m very happy to see this day,\u201d UConn men\u2019s basketball coach Kevin Ollie said. \u201cWe are looking forward to coming to Bridgeport and Fairfield County. That\u2019s one day after my birthday the 28th<\/sup>, so I\u2019m just hoping the celebration continues.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to bring our University of Connecticut spirit here,\u201d he added. \u201cWe know some people can\u2019t drive up to Storrs or Hartford, so hopefully those fans can come here and see the spirit and integrate themselves into the Husky pride.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"UConn<\/a>
UConn athletics director Warde Manuel takes the podium during the press event in Bridgeport on Oct. 7. (Stephen Slade ’89 (SFA) for UConn)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

There will be an exclusive priority presale of tickets to both games for UConn Club donors and UConn basketball season ticket holders beginning at 10 a.m. on Tuesday, Oct. 15. Tickets to both games go on sale to the general public on Friday, Oct. 18 at 10 a.m. via Ticketmaster.com, or by calling Ticketmaster at 800-745-3000, or in person at the Webster bank Arena box office.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve said since I\u2019ve gotten here that we represent the state,\u201d UConn athletics director Warde Manuel said. \u201cIt\u2019s important for us to come down here and connect with our fans, with our donors, with our alums \u2013 we have 30,000 alums in Fairfield County. It\u2019s just a win-win for us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bridgeport Mayor Bill Finch, a 1979 UConn graduate, was happy to welcome UConn to the city.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a very important day for the city of Bridgeport,\u201d Finch said. \u201cI couldn\u2019t be more excited to welcome my alma mater to the Webster Bank Arena. This is a great arena. This is not just about a basketball game, this is about economic development in the city of Bridgeport and this is about the children of the state of Connecticut. There isn\u2019t a better place you can go to school than the University of Connecticut. It\u2019s a great institution and we love it dearly and we are so proud we were able to put this together.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The men’s and women’s basketball teams will each play a regular-season game at Webster Bank Arena in Bridgeport this season. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":63,"featured_media":84406,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[129],"class_list":["post-84404","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-30 07:56:30","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84404","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/63"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=84404"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84404\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":84416,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84404\/revisions\/84416"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/84406"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=84404"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=84404"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=84404"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=84404"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=84404"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}