Ok, so maybe hope isn't enough. Execution, luck, and other factors are at play. I'm back home from my second Bucknell road trip in the last two months, and once again, the good guys lost to the Bison. Fun trip, though. I'm glad I went. Holy Cross played tough, as they have all year, and KHam had a phenomenal game. He gets praised (and occasionally attacked) on Crossports, but the praise isn't enough. He's awesome, and came to play yesterday. Thanks, Kevin, for showing your teammates what it means to play Holy Cross basketball. You'll be missed.
We arrived at BU around 2:30pm. As I've told a few people, the Bucknell campus smells like money, but yesterday, it smelled like cows. Seriously. We picked up our tickets at Will Call and made our way into Sojka. I was expecting a pumped-and-jacked crowd, something reminiscent of the Hart Center for the PL championship game against American in 2003, but that's not what we found. Less than two hours before the game, Hart was packed and LOUD that year. Yesterday at Sojka, less than two hours before the game, the place was empty and quiet. Disappointing (although I thought it was a good sign for Holy Cross). Fans gradually trickled in, and by 4pm, there was a decent contingent of orange shirts. By 4:15, it was finally beginning to feel like a championship game - a whole 15 minutes before the previously announced start time! (I found out around 4 or 4:15 that the start time had been pushed back to 4:45.)
Oh, here's something for you: You want contrived? The Sojka PA guy had a countdown to the live national telecast, starting at 10 seconds out. So when ESPN2 cut into Sojka, those of you watching at home heard a crowd that was about 5 times louder than it was only 10 seconds before. Hart has never needed that kind of ridiculous countdown for a PL championship telecast. What would be next, rally monkeys on the main scoreboard? We wouldn't have heard the PA anyway at Hart, with the crowds as loud as they were! (Or maybe that's an indictment of Hart's PA system. But that's not what I'm getting at.)
We had dinner in Scranton after the game. We ate at Stirna's, which has in recent years become a shrine to Syracuse guard Gerry McNamara. As luck would have it, we arrived at Stirna's with less than a minute left in the Syracuse-Georgetown Big East Semifinal game. The place was going crazy, although it wasn't as jam-packed as you might expect. Next year, we're lobbying for that restaurant to convert over to Pat Doherty. It's not as if the Doherty family doesn't have a presence in Scranton: Pat's uncle is the mayor!
Hope wasn't enough for the men's hoops team, and it wasn't enough for the ladies either. I watched that game on CSTV and it looked like a tremendous atmosphere. Our team had an excellent shot at stealing a PL title from the top-seeded squad from Army, but instead, a last-minute steal turned the game for the Black Knights. Jess Conte, I'll miss watching you. Thanks for everything you've brought to the program. And thanks to the rest of the graduating seniors on both the women's and men's side: Shannon Bush, Sarah Placek and Kevin Hyland. Enjoy the rest of your senior year at the Cross!
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2 comments:
They didn't cut to the game until tip-off, so it would've loud regardless, no countdown needed.
Don't be quick to knock the BU crowd, they've received praised by national press all year. HC fans have even commented how loud they were in your house in last year's PL championship. I think BU fan's were simply more excited for last years game. This year BU was likely going to the tourney regarless.
I'm not knocking BU fans. From what I've read, their crowds have been excellent all year. But this was a championship game. Compared with the championship games I've attended at Hart, there was a noticable difference in the "electricity" in the 1-2 hours prior to about 4:15.
Sojka wasn't rocking like I expected. Maybe you're right, perhaps the fans didn't believe the stakes were that high. In hindsight you could say, based on the 9 seed, that BU had a great chance at an at-large. But IMO they were no lock for one.
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