Pick up a basketball, get a good workout

When the Pitt men’s and women’s basketball teams take to the court, they’re surrounded by… When the Pitt men’s and women’s basketball teams take to the court, they’re surrounded by more than 12,000 seats in the Petersen Events Center. For regular Pitt students, things are a little bit different.

Our options are limited to Trees Hall and Bellefield Hall — a total of four courts for a student body numbering close to 29,000. But if you’re like me, you haven’t let this stop your quest to lace up a few times a week for some games of pickup hoops.

A workout in itself, the walk up to Trees Hall from lower campus can be daunting. After passing the Pete, you have to make your way up yet another hill. Then you can finally swipe your ID at the front desk. Starting up the flight of stairs, you can usually tell if the trek was worth your while; the sounds of basketball shoes sticking to hardwood and the clanking of basketballs off rims are always a good sign. Rounding the corner, you are finally face-to-face with your opponent.

The court closest to you generally draws solid competition, made up mostly of those who played for their high school or have enough love for the game to come up to Trees regularly. The middle court is reserved for the cream of the crop and if you can’t dunk, you might want to move on. The court at the far end of the gym sometimes remains open for stragglers to shoot around, but on crowded days will also be covered with 10 competitors playing games of First To Eleven by ones and twos, call your own fouls.

This may seem daunting at first, but much like calculus or chemistry, Trees has a formula to it. Generally speaking, if you head up to Trees on a Friday around 5 p.m., you’re going to have to wait a game or two before you get on the court. The weekend has officially started and people are trying to get in a last-second workout before heading off to indulge over the weekend. Thanks to college schedules, Thursdays are much the same and all three courts are usually taken. This crowd will stay for an hour or two, running full-court games until 7 p.m., when Trees tends to empty out. On a normal weeknight, you may still be able to find a game if you come up at this time, but on Thursdays and Fridays people seem to be in a hurry to get started with their night.

Bellefield, on the opposite side of campus, is a completely different story. A historical landmark, the courts look like they haven’t been varnished since Bellefield opened in 1926 — the court is more like a high school gym than something you’d expect to find on a college campus. The padded walls on either side, the caged-in gyms above the court at either end and the dust on the court are home to some of our University’s regular basketball players.

The competition of Trees may not always be there, but if you need a place to shoot around, Bellefield’s courts are open during most of the day. If you’re looking for a full-court game, there’s one to be found between 5 and 7 p.m., but the crowd varies far more than the ever-faithful competitors at Trees Hall. Still, if you go enough you’ll find regulars who make use of the often-underused court.

Pitt may not have brand-new courts — or even enough for the amount of students that attend the University — but if you love basketball, it doesn’t really matter.