GETTING STARTED: LET'S PLAY TWO

The World's Most Famous Arena, not just for shitty Knicks games anymore.

It was a nerve-racking start to the Project. I really had to sweat this one out, and I'm not just talking about the overtime and buzzer beater we eventually saw in our opening doubleheader at Madison Square Garden. No, it was earlier in the day that I did my most sweating. By mid-afternoon, only hours before Game 1 of the Aeropostale Holiday Festival (wtf?) was set to tip, I still had no positive confirmation from any of my core Nuts. Nope, not a single one had agreed to come along and I feared a long night of drinking solo at the Garden, not that I'm above that or anything. But then, like a hoops-crazed angel dropping from the sky, fellow Nut R. sent through a simple, two-word text: "basketball. yes." We were on.

The Garden is a great place to start our tour, primarily because we didn't have to sneak any booze into this one -- we may have more trouble come time for that Columbia/Penn game. Also, at the Garden, they load the plastic handle of every cup of suds with a free pretzel. (Holy God! Did you say free pretzels??! Yes, yes I did.) Seriously, it's like Paradise.

It's what's for dinner. Mmmm.

In addition to the beer & pretzels, two games of middling interest were being served up this night at the Garden: Hofstra vs. St. Joe's and Boston U. vs. St. John's. Unlike my last Garden foray, an unblogged about planning session with fellow Nut H. in early December, these teams actually brought their bands. And cheerleaders, but we'll get to that.

Game 1: Hofstra Pride (6-4) vs. St. Joe's Hawks (6-4)
St. Joe's, a team with a pretty signficant basketball history, one that seems to make the Dance about every other year. They're based in Philly, a city that rivals Gotham in terms of roundball madness... we'll be seeing them in February when us Nuts roadtrip it down the turnpike to that city of brotherly basketball love. Also, we had the bonus of seeing colorful and succesful St. Joe's Coach Phil Martelli, someone I have always thought could've been a recurring character on Barney Miller. Like maybe he was Fish's drinking buddy or something. Seriously, look:

'How 'bout another whiskey Fish?'

But it was the Hofstra Pride bandwagon we Nuts hitched our fortunes to on this night. For one, they're the home team, even if they do play on Long Island, and if there's one rule in this project, it's cheer for the New York team at any cost. Hell, we'll even root for Iona if we have to. *shudder*

The game itself was fantastic. At halftime, the hometown Pride were down 10 and all looked bleak. The St. Joe's cheering section was on their feet, laughing into their cheesesteaks, smelling victory... or maybe it was the stale, decades-old vomit in the upper reaches of the Garden (Rangers fans) they smelled. Nevertheless, they were happy. But in the 2nd half, the Pride put on a run, led by Antoine Agudio and Loren Stokes, and the Hofstra contingent began to make noise. The defense clamped down and held Martelli's squad to just one field goal in the last 9 minutes, eventually allowing Stokes to pop stop at the top of the key and hit a go-ahead 18-footer with 2.2 seconds left to win the thing. Pride wins! Pride wins! And you can suck it Philly.

FINAL: 65 63 (recap)

In between games, the kid two rows in front of us, Zachary, probably 10-years-old, was selected to participate in an on-court skills competition against some loser kid from some other section. And boy can I just tell you that that Zachary, the pride of our section, smoked that punk. He absolutely mopped the floor with him, left him in the dust. We were loving it. He had our full support. I'm sure his parents appreciated the boozy support we provided their son. Funnily though, they moved to a different section for game two. Oh well, more legroom for us.


Zachary, future Nut, basks in the warm glow of victory.

Game 2: St. John's Red Storm (8-3) vs. Boston U. Terriers (3-6)
Representing Queens, the St. John's The Red Storm (the artists formerly known as Red Men) were 8-3 and riding a six-game winning streak coming into this game. Of course, their domination of the N.J. Insitute of Technology (no, seriously) wasn't impressing anyone and they were considered severely unproven. That said, the BU Terriers came in with an ugly 3-6 record, and so the Red Whatevers were the easy favorites.

I honestly don't remember too much from this game, which I must confess was a byproduct of the copious amounts of beer I had guzzled by this point... did I mention they give you a free pretzel with EVERY beer?? How does one pass something like that up? Also contributing to my hazy recollection was the fact that this was perhaps the most boring game ever. Seriously, even the cheerleaders were boring. But it gets worse: They stopped serving beer in the 2nd half.

Good god, the humanity.

Amazingly, the game went into overtime and still managed to bore the shit out of us. True to the boring and ugly precedent already set, these teams even stumbled into overtime. Game tied 42-42, St. John's at the line with 1.3 seconds left -- have a look:



Eventually, somehow, St. John's did manage to pull this one out. True to form, the overtime featured a boring total of 5 boring points combined between the two boring teams. Ug-leee. The woeful Terriers were sent back to Beantown without any biscuits and the Red Storm continued to impress no one. Nonetheless, our Gotham teams managed to finish off the night with a sweep, so yay for that. Here's to hoping St. John's has nothing but vocational schools on the rest of their schedule.

FINAL: 45 44 (recap)

Amazingly, this did not end our evening. From here, we moved on to a Chelsea bar to join with more Nuts to watch a late-night West Coast game featuring Washington St. Cougars(11-1) take on the #1 UCLA Bruins (11-0). The Cougars, by the way, will make frequent appearances on this site even though they play nowhere near New York City. They are, however, my alma mater and the team first in my heart. They just missed pulling off a monumental upset on this night. Damn Bruins.

And with that, Night 1 of the 2007 ROUNDBALL NUTS Project concluded... at least I think it did, I don't really remember. Does anyone have a pretzel?


That should work. Thanks.