Memphis fans, 21,142 strong, filled to your rafters once the hometown Tigers took regarding the DePaul that is 20th-ranked Blue from Chicago. “It was amazing,” he remembers. “Because we arrived against payday loans dorset a team that is top-ranked the nation in DePaul. ESPN arrange it. Dick Vitale ended up being here. The entire nine yards. The group ended up being incredibly noisy that night, while the arena had been advanced.”
1992: Guard Anfernee Hardaway of this Memphis State Tigers dribbles the ball along the court throughout a . [+] game up against the DePaul Blue Demons in the Pyramid in Memphis, Tennessee. Credit: Allsport /Allsport
The Pyramid continued to host University of Memphis basketball games, often ranking among the top programs nationally in attendance while filling its cavernous hold with fans clad in the school’s colors, blue and gray for the duration of the 1990s. But because of the very early 2000s, a brand new age ended up being dawning in Memphis. The town had swung and missed for an NFL expansion group within the 90s, but finally guaranteed a league that is major in 2001, if the NBA’s Grizzlies had been lured to Tennessee from Vancouver.
The Grizzlies had been an instantaneous hit when you look at the town that is basketball-crazed. However the summer time following the very very first major league period in Memphis history, the Pyramid arrived face-to-face using its biggest evening, every night larger than baseball.