The run began in 1990, when Doug Mangum made his first trip to the ACC tournament. A newbie who didn’t know better, he booked a room about 35 miles outside of Charlotte, North Carolina — and ended up battling traffic to get to and from the arena.
But Mangum soon became an expert on planning and executing an annual college basketball tournament road trip, first to the ACC competition, then, once Maryland switched conferences, the Big Ten. Now, three decades after his first trip, Mangum is keeping his tournament streak going.
“I didn’t even think I’d be alive still,” Mangum said with a laugh, asked if he could’ve envisioned attending 31 straight conference tournaments.
Given this year’s circumstances, Mangum wondered whether the streak was maintainable. He and other Maryland basketball faithful didn’t know if they would be allowed to attend postseason play during the coronavirus pandemic. They hadn’t been able to watch games at Xfinity Center all season.
But once the Big Ten announced last week its intentions to welcome about 8,000 fans at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis for this week’s conference tournament, Mangum and several of his friends jumped at the opportunity to see the Terrapins live again for the first time in a year.
Mangum, a Greenbelt, Maryland, native who’s been a season-ticket holder since 1988, responded within 30 minutes of receiving an email with ticket information. Stan Arnold, from Westminster, Maryland, didn’t let any time pass, either.
And John Minke, who now lives in Oklahoma but was visiting his mother in Cumberland, Maryland, when the ticket information was announced, made adjustments to his travel itinerary. He changed his homeward-bound flight to Indianapolis instead, borrowed some Maryland apparel from a friend and is now ready for a return of some sort of normalcy — attending the Big Ten tournament once more.
“It’ll be so great to see live basketball again,” said Minke, who is fully vaccinated. “That’s really what we’re celebrating.”
Mangum, Arnold and Minke are part of a group that meets up at this time each year to cheer on Maryland and to enjoy high-quality college hoops once the Terrapins get knocked out — which, since 2017, has been early.
The group informally began when Mangum and Arnold met at a breakfast function during a Terrapin Club road trip to see the Maryland football team play Virginia Tech. That was back when Ralph Friedgen was still the head coach in the mid-2000s.
“Stan wishes that never happened,” Mangum joked.
They soon became friends, and the rest of the six-person group joined over time, meeting at games across the country.
“We didn’t know each other; this isn’t like six childhood friends,” Mangum said. “We’ve all kind of just pulled from each other, meeting at other Maryland games.”
“[Mangum] is kind of the glue, because he’s very gregarious,” Minke added. “He would come up and talk to all the Maryland fans, and we just kept seeing him at event after event. And so our little group grew.”
During a typical conference tournament, they catch as much basketball as possible — sneaking in meals here or there so as not to miss any on-court action.
Those meals are part of the fun, as table-top debates can rage over who’s the greatest Maryland player of all time to which team was the best to never win a title. Sometimes they compare events they’ve attended, or they throw around Terrapins trivia questions, arguing until someone finally looks up the answer on their phone.
“It doesn’t end, it just keeps going. And we have a lot of fun,” Minke said. “Everybody has a different personality, but we all get along. I think being Maryland fans is what cements the comradery.”
The banter was cut short last season, of course. As the spread of the coronavirus began shutting down the NBA and other sporting events, the Big Ten and NCAA tournaments soon followed — a huge letdown for the Terrapins, who’d just won a share of the Big Ten regular-season title.
“It seemed like it was going to be our year, not just for the Big Ten tournament, but for the NCAA tournament,” Arnold said. “So, certainly disappointing. But even more so for Coach [Mark] Turgeon and for the team.”
This year, Maryland will actually compete, entering as a No. 8 seed with a matchup against No. 9 seed Michigan State on Thursday. After two straight losses to finish the regular season, Mangum, Arnold and Minke aren’t expecting the team to run the table.
But the chance to see the Terrapins in a real, live basketball game? That makes up for everything, no matter what Maryland does.
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