College basketball just proved it can work outdoors, and Charleston hosted the experiment

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John Groce has coached college basketball for three decades. Sunday was the first time he needed sunscreen to do it.

The College of Charleston head coach was one of five programs that turned Credit One Stadium on Daniel Island, home of the Charleston Open tennis tournament, into a basketball venue for the inaugural TheLinkU Invitational. South Carolina, College of Charleston, The Citadel, Virginia and Vanderbilt all played outdoors in a tripleheader that had no real precedent in college basketball.

Groce's prep included a wardrobe note from home. "My wife told me I needed 70 SPF," he said, only half joking about what coaching a game with no roof actually requires.

The wind was the other variable nobody could scout for. Outdoor conditions visibly affected shooting accuracy throughout the day, the kind of detail that would normally get a game written off as a novelty. Instead, coaches and analysts walked away treating it as something closer to a proof of concept.

Citadel coach Ed Conroy was blunt about it. "I thought this whole thing was great for our team, the city of Charleston and college basketball," he told the Post & Courier. ESPN analyst Debbie Antonelli went further, predicting the format has staying power. "I think it's here to stay," she said.

The event pulled people well beyond the Charleston area. Egan McHugh drove his daughters in from Jacksonville, telling reporters the outdoor setting itself was worth the trip, not just the basketball. That's the kind of travel a normal midseason exhibition doesn't generate, and it's exactly the signal organizers were hoping to see for a first-year event.

It also pulled in some star power off the court. Comedian Nate Bargatze and former North Carolina head coach Roy Williams were both in the crowd, adding a bit of celebrity gravity to a day that was still, underneath it all, a basketball experiment.

On the actual scoreboard, College of Charleston beat The Citadel 69-59 behind 16 points from Eli Ellis, and Vanderbilt topped Virginia 82-73 with Jayden Leverette leading the way at 15 points.

The real story isn't either final score. It's that a tennis stadium on Daniel Island just hosted a format college basketball hasn't seriously tried before, and by every account from the people on the floor, it worked well enough to do again.

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