USS Abraham Lincoln Will Host a Gonzaga-Michigan State Basketball Game
The only NCAA basketball games played on the decks of aircraft carriers occurred in 2011 and 2012.
The USS Abraham Lincoln’s home port is San Diego, and it holds the record for the two longest deployments after the Cold War.
In November 2022, Michigan State vs. Gonzaga returns the Spartans to the deck of an aircraft carrier after playing in the first-ever game on one, the USS Carl Vinson, in 2011.
When the USS Abraham Lincoln returns home to San Diego later this year, the crew will trade the flight deck’s armored steel for a hardwood basketball floor as part of ESPN’s Armed Forces Classic. On Veteran’s Day this year, November 11, the Gonzaga Bulldogs will face the Michigan State Spartans in an NCAA basketball game played on the aircraft carrier’s deck, while the USS Abraham Lincoln moors at the Naval Air Station North Island in Coronado.
This isn’t the first time the NCAA has staged basketball games on aircraft carriers, but it will be the first time in roughly a decade. And this is a first for USS Abraham Lincoln, America’s fifth Nimitz-class aircraft carrier.
Previous experiments with basketball on aircraft carrier decks haven’t always gone as planned, even if the first such game was a success. The original game occurred in November 2011 on the USS Carl Vinson. In that game, North Carolina defeated Michigan State in front of then-President Barack Obama and former First Lady Michelle Obama. The USS Carl Vinson had returned just six months prior from leading the Osama bin Laden burial at sea.
“When we played a game on the deck of an aircraft carrier just over 10 years ago to help honor Veteran’s Day, we thought it might be a once-in-a-lifetime type of experience,” Tom Izzo, Michigan State head coach, says in a news release. “I know our team, our players, our coaches and staff and Michigan State Athletics is very excited about getting the opportunity to play a tremendous program like Gonzaga on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln and honoring all of those who serve our military.”
The inaugural game on an aircraft carrier worked out well in San Diego in 2011, although rain started less than an hour after the game finished. In 2012, the NCAA planned four aircraft carrier games, but the weather wasn’t as cooperative. Two of the four never happened, and one of the two that did was delayed and marred by the conditions.
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The return to the aircraft carrier and outdoor games requires teams to be willing to adjust to the logistics of the unique setting, not unlike the crew of the USS Abraham Lincoln, which is one of the largest warships in the world, and has been on two of the longest post-Cold War missions for the United States Pacific Fleet.
Originally launched in 1988 and commissioned in 1989, the $3 billion ship’s first deployment came in 1991 as part of Operation Desert Shield/Desert Storm. Over the last few decades, USS Abraham Lincoln has been on two record-breaking post-Cold War deployments; the latest was a 295-day stretch at sea, ending in 2020. The ship has also been involved in deployments from Iran to Afghanistan. The aircraft carrier is known for hosting President George W. Bush’s 2003 address to the country, with the banner “Mission Accomplished” hanging in the background.
Abraham Lincoln has also been part of multiple aid missions, including helping out during evacuations following a volcano eruption in the Philippines, and working as part of a group of ships assisting 45,000 people evacuating from the Visayas. That evacuation included a baby being born on the ship.
The USS Abraham Lincoln, currently in Tokyo Bay, will return this summer before the November game, but has already been a key pop culture icon in America. While multiple movies have been filmed on the ship, it was a key player in the recent Top Gun: Maverick release.
Throughout the course of USS Abraham Lincoln’s history, it has been stationed in San Diego, California; Everett, Washington; and Bremerton, Washington, before spending time at Newport News, Virginia. San Diego’s Coronado is again the home port for the aircraft carrier hoping to bring carrier basketball back to the masses.
Following the successful 2011 game, the first of two planned games on November 9, 2012 on USS Yorktown in Charleston, South Carolina—a women’s game between Notre Dame and Ohio State—went off without a hitch. But the men’s game between Ohio State and Marquette scheduled for later in the evening on the same day was canceled due to condensation on the court.
The same evening’s planned game in Gainesville, Florida, aboard the USS Bataan was shut down at halftime due to condensation forming on the hardwood. In San Diego, also on November 9, 2012, rain pushed the Syracuse vs. San Diego State game on the USS Midway to the afternoon of November 11. Sunshine allowed the game to go on, but a wind blowing across San Diego Bay may have contributed to San Diego State shooting 1-for-18 from three-point range.
For 2022, the teams hope to focus on the honor, not the weather. “This is a special opportunity for our program to support those who fight for our country in our own small way,” Mark Few, Gonzaga head coach, says in the release.
Vice Admiral Kenneth Whitesell, commander, Naval Air Forces, says in the release that in the centennial year of the U.S. Navy aircraft carrier, hosting a game on one of the most renowned aircraft carriers offers a way to salute those in uniform for serving in the military.
“The experience we had in 2011 when we played North Carolina on the deck of the USS Carl Vinson was one of the most humbling experiences of my career,” Izzo says. “This opportunity to play on an aircraft carrier in front of men and women who serve in the military and are willing to put their lives on the line is an experience that is going to mean something to the young men who will play in the game for a long, long time.”
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