NEW HAVEN, Conn. (March 12, 2026) \u2014 UConn men\u2019s basketball begins its quest for another Big East Tournament title Thursday night, and fans were already boarding trains at New Haven\u2019s Union Station hours before tip-off.<\/p>\n
Metro-North is adding extra trains on the New Haven Line this week to accommodate the surge of basketball fans heading to Madison Square Garden in New York City.<\/p>\n
Valerie Mendoza of Newington said she was dressed in UConn gear from head to toe and ready for the tournament.<\/p>\n
\u201cSaid we\u2019re going to go all out, got good tickets, so excited,\u201d Mendoza said. \u201cThis is my first time at the tournament, I\u2019ve been to some games at the XL Center. I love UConn \u2014 all things UConn, sports, basketball, everything.\u201d<\/p>\n
Paul Pesca said he was relieved by the Huskies\u2019 first-round matchup.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m glad they\u2019re not playing Marquette \u2014 lost to Marquette Saturday, watched the game, didn\u2019t want to see the same thing over,\u201d Pesca said.<\/p>\n
For some fans, the trip to New York for the Big East Tournament is an annual tradition. Kate Wargo of West Suffield said her family has made the train ride a regular part of the postseason.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a tradition \u2014 this is our 3rd year? 4th year coming down on the train,\u201d Wargo said.<\/p>\n
Stella and Sarah Frank of Granby said they were looking forward to both the game and the city.<\/p>\n
\u201cI love doing all the activities in New York, it\u2019s so much fun,\u201d Stella Frank said. \u201cShe might be going to her first game tonight though \u2014 we\u2019re looking forward to Xavier, hoping the guys pull out a big win and we\u2019re looking forward to a fun weekend, go Huskies.\u201d<\/p>\n
Copyright 2026 WFSB. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW HAVEN, Conn. (March 12, 2026) \u2014 UConn men\u2019s basketball begins its quest for another Big East Tournament…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":161781,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[7729,9,56,63,65,64,66716,55990],"class_list":["post-161780","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-big-east","tag-new-york","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-nyc-headlines","tag-nyc-news","tag-uconn","tag-uconn-basketball"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161780","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=161780"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161780\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/161781"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=161780"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=161780"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=161780"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}