BOONE, N.C. - Eager for the start of basketball season, fans packed the Holmes Center on Tuesday evening for the sixth-annual Mountaineer Madness event.

Head basketball coaches Houston Fancher and Darcie Vincent entered the Holmes Center in a camouflage National Guard Humvee to tip off the evening. The ASU drum line, cheerleaders, dance and step teams performed before each coach addressed the crowd. The teams were then introduced to the crowd before competing in split-squad scrimmage. The evening was capped by the fan-favorite dunk contest and a dance-off between various ASU athletic teams.

In the women's scrimmage, the Gold team jumped out to an early lead with a Chakeitha Weldon layup followed by a Sade Means jumper and Catherine Williams putback layup.

The Black squad rallied back with layups from Frances Hernandez and Karina Mill and trailed 12-7 after the first five-minute half.

Mill and Hernandez led their team with six and five points, respectively, as Black took a 13-12 lead in the second half. The Gold team scored the final six points of the scrimmage on a Haley Hackett layup and four-straight points from Catherine Williams.

Williams led Gold with six points in the game and punctuated the 18-13 triumph with a crossover drive in the paint as the clock expired.

The men's scrimmage started slow with the Black squad taking a 9-8 lead before the break between the two 7-minute halves. In the second half, the Gold team rallied to take the lead, but a buzzer-beating three-pointer from Donald Sims forced the 23-23 tie as Sims finished with eight points. His counterpart on the Black team, Jeremi Booth, also had eight points on two smooth three-pointers and a breakaway dunk off a steal.

Freshmen Andre Williamson and Quinche Dowdell showed flashes of potential as Dowdell picked up four points while Williamson had two points on a big dunk and blocked a shot.

One of the highlights of the evening was, as usual, the dunk contest. Booth, Williamson and Kellen Brand squared off in the contest with a twist. Each contest had to replicate a 'classic dunk' from the past and then their own freestyle dunk. Booth showed he meant business, bringing down the house with a dunk tossed off the backboard, then headed back to him in mid-air by ASU men's soccer standout Arie Muniz before throwing it down with a 360-degree dunk a la Amare Stoudamire and Steve Nash in the 2007 NBA Slam Dunk Contest.

They could have handed Booth the title right then as his two challengers had nothing comparable to answer with but not before two more dunks from Booth kept the fans on their feet.

Both teams saved perhaps the best for last, as the women's team challenged the men to a dance contest. Each team performed a choreographed routine but the ladies easily won over the crowd of more than 1,700 fans with a wardrobe change mid-performance and a flawlessly-executed show.

Both squads tip off the 2008-09 campaign on Friday at 7 p.m: the women at home against Marshall and the men at UNC Wilmington.