SoCon Tourney guide to Charleston, SC

Now that the regular season is over, all eyes turn to that great city on the water: Charleston, SC. Whether you are coming to Charleston for the first time this weekend or for the umpteenth time in your life, you should take a look at my handy SoCon Visitor's guide that I have put together about my fair home town. Every once in a while, writers need to go out on limbs and open themselves up to disagreement, and I'm sure that this list will lend itself to that. Please feel free to post thoughts and additional suggestions in the comments section.

Here are my DO's and DONT's on Charleston visiting.

DON'T necessarily get a hotel right next to the Coliseum unless plan on going to nearly all of the games. Because of the big roads, you can't easily walk around the area which means that you have to get in your car anyway. If you are in your car driving, you might as well stay at a place that is more serviceable to the rest of the city.

DO check out cheap hotels in Mt. Pleasant. The new bridge is within walking distance and you can quickly drive Downtown or to the arena while not paying the high rates of hotels downtown. (Unfortunately, most hotels are already booked up for Friday and Saturday...so I hoped that you read my mind and already got your room).

DON'T eat at some of the restaurants at the top of all those tourist lists. Hyman's Seafood and Jestine's Kitchen are the worst offenders of passing off mediocre food for high prices and convincing everyone it's great...just because all the tourists are doing it.

DO check out some of the following eateries...

Fleet Landing on Concord St. for great seafood and an impressive view of the harbor, a little pricey...

Fig on Meeting and St. Philip, cozy atmosphere, diverse menu and it's right across from Sticky Fingers where you can go in and check out Stephen Colbert's original portrait within a portrait within a portrait...eat at Fig, walk into Sticky Fingers...

Five Loaves Cafe at multiple locations, moderately priced with casual lunches and great dinner entrees, excellent food at a corner cafe kind of feel

Kickin Chicken and Andolinis Pizza for the college kid in you (or you the college kid)...the Kickin Chicken is on King St. while Andolinis is one block off King on Wentworth, great filling sandwiches and pizza with a college atmosphere...wear your Davidson gear and get taunted by all the servers, bring up Davidson's record against CofC and you might get slower service, but it's completely worth it. (I just found from their website, that there is a new Kickin Chicken with brand new widescreen TV's over in West Ashley where I live, and which is closer to the stadium...more details will be coming, but I am proposing that Davidson fans take it over on Saturday night to watch UNC/Duke.)

DO get out and walk around the city. Charleston is small for its size and you can get a better feel for things by walking around. See the cannons down on South Battery and the old well at the College of Charleston. Charleston has some really cool old houses and churches and a quaint little lake and park on Beaufain and Ashley. Obviously, no walk through Charleston is complete unless you mosey down King St. It has great shopping, really interesting buildings, great bars, and unlimited opportunity to flash your Wildcat gear at unsuspecting Charlestonians.

DON'T bother with a lot of the tour things because of your limited time. Carriage rides, house tours, ghost walks and the like don't let you see anything you can't see on your own and most of their stories are all made up anyway.

DO go to the aquarium at the end of Calhoun Street. It has a great view of the harbor and the bridge and a monster tank in the middle with a lot of sharks and rays and cool looking fish. I have been there a ton since my Dad is a member, but I still enjoy looking at the fish...it is "enchanting" (not like Coach McKillop has said that Cameron Indoor is "enchanting," this is a different type).

I hope that this is helpful to all Wildcat fans coming to our fair city this week and weekend. Again, please post additional suggestions and disagreements in the comment box...and make sure to wear your Wildcat red wherever you go. I will be...

Home away from home

And so the Wildcats are back. 9-0 in the conference and staying in their home away from home at Davidson. Last night on the team bus, all of the guys were cracking up, laughing to the one-liners of a comedy on the bus screens. When several players began to see me packing my bag, their eyes perked up. There, coming around the bend of I-26 was the best bad hotel that any of these players had ever stayed in: the red Sheraton. The laughter descrescendo-ed into a serious, calm silence.

For seniors Jason Richards, Boris Meno and Thomas Sander (and even myself to a point), this city has been nothing but a haven of goodly southern hospitality, balmy Palmetto trees and winning basketball. In the last three years, Davidson has won 12 straight games while staying at that Sheraton with the slightly undersized rooms and pathetic attempt at a real bar in the premises. Richards, Meno and Sander remember Jason Morton's last-second heave to beat the College of Charleston and preserve that undefeated conference record in 2005. The juniors and seniors plus Brendan all remember Davidson's late-night come-from-behind victory to beat The Citadel in the quarterfinals of the 2006 SoCon tournament. They remember the celebrations after going back-to-back in the North Chuck Coliseum to win consecutive league titles and NCAA berths.

They remember how much pride and ownership the city of Charleston takes in the Southern Conference. Unlike Chattanooga, the host of the basketball tournament in 2009, Charleston has embraced SoCon sports across the map for many years, hosting baseball, basketball, tennis and soccer tournaments year in and year out.

The city's small newspaper, The Post and Courier, has taken on the responsibility of being the "official" news source of the Southern Conference, outworking David Uchiyama and the Chattanooga Times Free Press for that distinction by virtue of the presence of two SoCon schools within miles of each other. Even today as the basketball Wildcats walk through that Sheraton lobby on the way to shootaround, they will see not Clemson or Charleston or South Carolina or even The Citadel on the front page of the sports section...but themselves. Jeff Hartsell's 3/4 page article on Davidson entitled "A League of its Own," comes across as so complimentary to the Wildcats that even this former Davidsonian editor blushed a little. In fact, the article was so good to the rival of Charleston's home teams, that the Post and Courier have not even put it on their website yet. (EDIT: it is now up. You can see it here

So here we are. Back home again. The air is a little warmer. The streets a little less crowded. This ground isn't filled with all that Davidson-red clay...it's just nice smooth sand.