Billy is Furious

I got an anxious text from Billy yesterday asking what the hell is wrong with Blake Griffin.

From Rolling Stone:
Los Angeles Clippers star Blake Griffin and Black-ish creator Kenya Barris have teamed to remake the 1992 basketball buddy comedy "White Men Can't Jump."

Mike and Tony on PTI had some good lines including "why would I watch this, when I could just watch that one?"

And "this is the stupidest thing Blake Griffin has ever done, including punching the equipment manager."

I wondered who would play the Rosie Perez character, Sofia Vergara?

I think it's a comment on Hollywood that they have run out of good ideas, but also about those millennials. They don't want to watch a movie from 1992. It's not even in HD.

But remember how you were in 1992? Would you have wanted to watch a movie from 1967?

If Michael Did This He'd Be a Serial Killer

One night in July 2012 Aaron Hernandez was Cure Lounge in Boston. While he stood near the dance floor, Daniel Abreu, dancing nearby, bumped into him, causing him to spill some of his drink. Abreu, who had never met Hernandez, smiled and kept dancing.
Hernandez was livid. At 2:30 a.m. July 16, Hernandez followed the BMW Abreu was driving and fired five shots into the sedan, killing Abreu and his friend Safiro Furtado, according to police.

If everyone in New Jersey behaved liked this there would be zero men aged 21-35 in the entire state. One time Michael had just purchased a $13 vodka and Red Bull and as soon as he turned around some douche danced right into him, spilling at least 11 dollars worth.

Then there was one time Billy was wearing a white shirt, and I don't remember the circumstances but somehow a cranberry juice drink got splattered all over his back. He looked as if he was covered in blood. But it was on his back, so Michael and I just told him that you couldn't even notice.

Not to make light of a serious situation, but it is kind of funny in a macabre way just how fuckin nuts Aaron Hernandez was and probably still is.

Give Billy A House

Congrats to Billy for winning the 2014 Tournament Challenge for our group. In one of the worst performances ever (not our fault, it was a crazy tournament), not a single entry in our group had either of the correct teams in the final game.
But Billy did have Kentucky making the Final Four which was good enough to propel him to a victory over Michael and over his own second entry. There is nothing wrong with submitting multiple brackets (our motto: vote early, vote often) and Billy would have had the top two spots, but he lost to Michael on the tiebreaker.
It was another fun year of the competition and it's cool that some of the kids are starting to pick their own brackets, though maybe next year Jack should be supervised.
Hope to see you all again next year.
One more thing just occurred to me, Billy and I had this debate after Jim Nantz went on his rant about the best freshman (Wiggins and Parker) getting knocked out early and both Nantz and Billy were on the team over talent side, I will take talent every single time. And yet, Billy won because he picked the greatest collection of talent to make the Final Four, beating the best "team" in Wichita State in the process.
As I said before, every game is a different circumstance and there is no one thing that predicts who will win.
Which makes the tournament challenge so much fun.

Billy joins this illustrious list of past champions:

2013: TON
2012: Reissberg
2011: Mrs. Poop
2010: Vacated (I forgot to keep accurate records)
2009: Mrs. Poop
2008: Pa Beers
2007: Michael

If You Had the Bears and 42 Points...YOU LOST!

2013 was a great year in the life of The Poop especially as it regards all the awesome sporting events I went to. There was the Rangers game in the amazing seats, the Jon Jones title fight, the Home Run Derby, the field passes at CitiField, Chase's first Knicks game, the last appearance by Syracuse in the Big East Tournament, and of course the Final Four in Atlanta, which I went to with my best friend Billy. A fitting way to end the year was enjoying a game in style. Since Billy is a bigwig at a company with a suite he asked for the tickets to the Bears game.
He donned his Walter Payton jersey, and I wore a Bears shirt to support my buddy and we entered into enemy territory.

It's a good picture, but a little too much light behind us darkened our faces.

Note: While Eagles fans get a bad rep, and they may have been tailgating all day, we didn't get hassled at all for wearing Bears gear. Obviously no one in the corporate suite is going to do that, and we didn't go to the concourse or hang out in the parking lot, but we saw a lot of other Bears fans in full regalia and Eagles fans said nothing. Not to say it never happens, but the idea that I heard from many people that if I wear a Bears shirt, I'm going to get attacked by an angry mob, is totally untrue.

The suite was really nice, you walk in and there's hot food on the right and snacks and stuff on the right and seats in front. 2 rows of 6 seats and then some high tables that you can also sit at and watch the game.

Had it been cold, the suite would have provided a little respite from the weather but not too much. But it was a very comfortable 50-something degree night. I didn't even wear a jacket.

Note: we felt very VIP with our laminated tickets.

Let's start with the food, I started with a cheesesteak (the meat, onions and cheese are in separate compartments and you cobble together your own sandwich) because when in Rome...

Then I had the paella.

The fridge was fully stocked. And they actually brought the champagne around towards the end of the game.

There were soft pretzels.

And popcorn. I took the bucket, but don't worry I left those cups for other people.

And for dessert there were gingerbread men and a yule log. Pretty cool.

At the end of the game there was still an entire tray of gingerbread men still left so I took a couple home. The suite attendant offered to give us any other leftover food because otherwise she'd have to throw it away. She was literally thinking "what am I going to do with all this paella?"

The food was great, but then the game started. From the 30-yard line, we had a great view of one of the worst ass-kickings I've ever seen. The Bears couldn't move the ball, and every time the Eagles had the ball, they scored. There seemed a moment where the game could have turned, down 24-3 the Bears forced a Lesean McCoy fumble and recovered near midfield. A touchdown there would have at least made it a game, but it was overturned on replay.

When Jay Cutler got picked off and it was returned for a touchdown to make it 47-11 with 8 minutes left we decided to bail out. As soon as we left the stadium we heard a roar, the Eagles had scored again to make it 54-11. I hate to leave early but it was late and I had a long drive ahead of me.

On that drive home I heard an old DMX song, with a line I had never quite understood. It refers to a very popular line of Reeboks, which I later learned had been commonly referred to by the price they cost, after tax. The shoes sold for 49.99, when you added New York's old 8.25% tax rate ($4.12) you got...54-11.

Billy's Second Favorite Team

During the amazing run of Florida Gulf Coast to the Sweet 16, the only person more caught up in the excitement than I, was Billy.

He loved the style of play, Dunk City

He loved Coach Andy Enfield's free-throw percentage in college (92.5)

And he loved the coach's hot wife, Amanda Marcum Enfield

Now that the Enfields have moved to USC, they are doing even more things to make Billy love them. Like visiting fraternity and sorority houses to drum up support for the team.

Note: Mrs. Enfield (seated on her husband's right, is still hotter than 90% of these chicks, despite being twice their age)

But that all pails in comparison to who Coach Enfield put on his staff. Former Syracuse point guard Jason Hart

and former Syracuse shooting guard, Tony Bland.

Hart and Bland are both L.A. natives and their goal is to get the best players from the area to choose USC over UCLA.

Leave Vabilla Ice Alone

6 years ago Billie, aka Vabilla Ice, performed his last hurrah at his own wedding, famously performing to "Ice Ice Baby" and doing two splits in one dance.
Shortly thereafter, I posted the video on youtube under the heading "Vabilla Ice Gets Married."



Today, I got a copyright claim since the video contains the music in the background.

Obviously the record companies do have a claim against me because my video does contain a portion of the work that they own the distribution rights to. But one of the considerations is whether the potentially offending usage impinges the copyright owner's ability to make money off the original work. So ask yourself, would anyone not buy the "Ice Ice Baby" because of the 90 seconds of poor quality audio that can be heard on my video? Seeing as how only 700 people have viewed in 6 years, of course that can be it.

The real threat, is that Vabilla Ice is such a good dancer, Rob Van Winkle is obviously threatened.

Thankfully they are allowing my video to stay on youtube, but may place ads next to it.

Sherman Had a Better Time in Atlanta

When Billy and I were skyping during the Syracuse-Marquette regional final (as we often do during Syracuse games) and it became clear Syracuse was going to Atlanta, we debated whether we should join them. Billy was gung-ho and steadfast on going solo if I didn't join him.
Eventually I was persuaded and we immediately hopped on vividseats to get our tickets. Vividseats is a little better than stubhub and generally has cheaper ticket prices. We decided to spend a little more to get seats in the 200 level. Our seats were $305, and after the ridiculous, borderline-criminal fees, they came out to $390, but I think stubhub would have been similar.
Then I booked my flight, which I got for $550 because I was willing to stop and change planes in Charlotte. For the record, Billy drove to Baltimore to get a cheaper flight, but he flew direct.

I took the NJ Transit train, switched at Secaucus, and went right to the airport. It actually was pretty convenient and a lot easier than finding someone to drive you.

Flight to Charlotte was delayed slightly but I still had plenty of time to catch my plane. I found my gate and it was easy enough to spot because everyone there was wearing either orange or yellow. The gateside seating area was literally segregated. One creepy 30-ish Michigan guy was kicking it to every young Michigan girl who looked like a student. Unfortunately the seating on the plane was not as well-designed. I was in a 3-person row on the window, with a fellow Syracuse person on the aisle, but a fat dude with a yellow hat sat in between us. The conversation was mostly pleasant and there was no incident.

We go to the airport and hopped on the shuttle to our hotel, the Courtyard Marriott. Little did we know there was a Courtyard North, South and West, all in the area by the airport. So we got on the wrong shuttle, to the wrong hotel but eventually got to the correct one, checked in quickly and headed right back town. That required getting back on the shuttle to the airport and taking MARTA from there.

Marta is pretty good as big city mass transit systems go. Everything is arranged around a junction called 5 points, everything meets there. The airport is south, so you gotta go about 15 minutes north through College Park (made famous by Luda) to 5 Points, then one stop over the Georgia Dome, Phillips Arena, Olympic Centennial Park and CNN Center.

So we got off there and went to the game, which you can read about in a separate post.

After the game, downtrodden and devastated we went back to Marta, caught two incredibly packed trains and made our way back to the airport to catch a shuttle to the hotel. The train was absolutely packed, so much so that we got delayed because someone was blocking the door. At least that's what they told us the first time. Then they said someone was leaning on the door. Then they said police were conducting business on the train. Huge delays in a packed train, after midnight, after losing the game. Unpleasant. It took about an hour to get back to the airport at which point we engaged in a pushing and shoving match with a huge crowd to get on the shuttle back to our hotel. I won and got a nice seat in the back, Billy lost and barely made it on the bus.

I was seated next to a couple of SU students who had driven down on Friday (18 hours in one day). They relayed to me their horrible experience at the game. Each team had a big student section right behind the basket, and when the first game ended they cleared out Wichita State's and brought in Michigan's and Syracuse's moved to where Louisville's was. So during the first game, the Syracuse students were herded into a convention center across the street and given tickets. Towards the end of the first game they were let into the Georgia Dome into an empty section. When the game ended the students ran for any seat regardless of assigned ticket. This poor girl, from the Five Towns (so probably one of ours) didn't get a seat and had to stand under the basket to watch the game. But she said, it would have all been worth it had they won. That must have been a miserable 15 hour car ride back to Syracuse.

The next morning Billy and I tried to salvage some semblance of fun from our trip so we headed back downtown to find a Waffle House. A real Southern tradition, Sunday morning breakfast at the Waffle House. We found one that looked nice enough but the neighborhood must not be that great, because the menu said we would be charged a 20% security fee on our bill. And Billy and his tiny bladder had to be buzzed into the bathroom.



Our waitress was so nice, and I felt badly that she had to work in what I presumed was an unsafe hellhole, so I gave her a 100% tip on my $5 meal. People definitely are different down south. Everyone was so much nicer. Low wage, menial task employees in New York would have been rude and disinterested. In Atlanta everyone we saw was friendly and helpful, going out of their way to help us, including the Waffle House employee who walked outside with us to show us how to get to CNN Center.



Obviously I had heard a lot about the place in my 8.5 years there, but had never visited it, so it was a cool experience, even though I wasn't able to connect with any friends for a behind the scenes tour. CNN Center has a mall on the ground floor where there was a giant bracket.



There was also a Braves team store. Braves fans are so stupid they need a t-shirt to teach them how to do the tomahawk chop.



Then we walked through the shops and bought a little souvenir for Mrs. Poop and AliNatPro.



Then we went into the huge convention center where they were hosting Bracket Town, basically a huge fanfest. $10 to get in, but well worth it, because we got to:

See Christian Laettner, but we didn't have time nor motivation to wait on line for his autograph.



Pretend to cut down the net (scissors were glued shut)



Posterize me (I let Billy be the dunker, even though his pit stain is repulsive)



Pose for a picture with the rest of the team



But then it was time to go home. We took the train back to the airport and parted right before security, the lines for which were ridiculous. I was actually late to my flight, one of the last people on, so late that they stewardesses had a list of people missing, it was me, and the two people next to me. Just when I thought I might have the entire row to myself a woman gets on with a 1-year-old kid, and a 4-week old baby. And she didn't have the car seat. So she had to hold the baby and and a stewardess had to hold the older boy. For the whole flight this stewardess did nothing but hold this lady's kids. And why the fuck would you take a 4-week old from Atlanta to St. Louis? What the fuck is so important? Thankfully the kids didn't cry and disturb the entire flight.

When I got to Charlotte I had almost two hours to kill, so I sat down for some traditional carolina BBQ. That thing next to my cornbread is a fried pickle.



There was an EA Sports store and it had a Robert Griffin III jersey shirt for $20, so I bought it. I didn't notice a tiny hole on the shoulder. Tried to contact the company and they didn't respond. Never buy shit at the airport.

I made it home safely and spent the last week or so contemplating the trip. It sucked because they lost. No getting around that. I would not have gone had I know they were going to lose. But I didn't know, I took a chance. I had a nice time seeing a city I had never seen before, rooting on my team in an important game, experiencing something I may never get to experience again. And I did it all with my best friend.



So I guess the trip wasn't that bad.

The Hurt Has Subsided Now

It's been a week and the hurt has finally subsided enough for me to rewatch the Syracuse game and write a post about it. I'll start with everything that happened from the time we got to the Georgia Dome about 5pm Saturday night, until the time we left, around midnight. The rest of the trip to Atlanta will be covered in a separate post.

We got to the Dome more than an hour ahead of time and had a chance to walk around the plaza in front of the building where they had concessions and beer stands (no beer for sale inside the arena). It was a nice day and pleasant to be outside and thousands of people were milling about. The security line was huge, but he used a gate on the outside and made it in quickly. We bought out seats through vividseats, which is like stubhub all the way down to its exorbitant and borderline criminal fees ($85 on a $300 ticket), and we didn't even get a ticket. Billy swiped his credit card through a reader and it printed a small stub with our seats on them.

Billy and I decided to drop the extra money (which amounted to $60 - $75 each) to get 2nd level tickets. This turned out to be a great idea for two reasons. First, our seats, though far from the action, had a great line of sight, and were much closer than the back rows of the 300 level which were so much higher and farther away than we were.

This picture taken without zoom.



This picture was taken with Billy's panoramic.



The second was the food. There were two concourses on our level, the regular one, right behind the seats with your typical arena fare. Then a nicer almost restaurant quality one, where there were carpeted spaces with tables and chairs, and better food.

I started out with the turkey leg, no surprise there.



And right before our game I got an Italian ice (only $5, not bad considering today's normal arena prices) and I got lemon and creamsicle. I prefer cherry but I thought I needed to get something orange since I had told Chase to eat an orange and an orange candy after dinner that night.



The first half was bad. And as much as I want to (and I will) dissect the second half and the little plays that could have made the difference, Syracuse really lost this game in the first half. They couldn't make a shot (especially James Southerland who got viciously swatted on a fast break) and they didn't play the aggressive defense that had been their calling card through the first four games of the tournament, allowing Spike Albrecht to nail a couple 3s and Michigan had an 11-point halftime lead, the biggest deficit Syracuse faced all season.

But before I start ranting about bad calls and bad coaching let me first say that Syracuse should not have been able to come back in this game. Michigan went to the John Beilein Memorial No Points Offense (what is it about coaches witrJB as their initials?) way too early, and they missed a ton of free throws. By the end of the game I was screaming "miiiiiiiiiissssssssssss" during each Michigan free throw and they missed so many (5 out of 9, not including the lane violation) in the last minute or so, my voice was getting hoarse.

Now onto the three plays that decided this game:

First, a minute-40 left, the score is 53-49. McGary just passed up an inside shot and kicked the ball way out to Hardaway who got trapped and ran over Michael Carter-Williams and they called a block. It was a horrible call. You generally have to be set to draw a charge, but it doesn't mean that the ballhandler can just run the defender over. MCW has as much right to a spot as TH Jr does. Hardaway ran him over, and used his arm to do it. It was a horrible blocking call, just horrible.



Next Syracuse gets the ball with 28 seconds left, down 2 points, and Triche puts his head down and drives right to the basket. Jordan Morgan gets in his way and they call an offensive foul on Triche. Three things about this play. First, this is why I barely watch the NBA very much anymore. The whole league has turned into this at crunch time, give the ball to your best player, tell him to dribble right into someone and hope to get the call. LeBron does this more than anyone and it ruins the NBA for me. It's not basketball and it's not fun to watch. Second, Jim Boeheim should have called timeout and designed a better play than this. Even if this was a called play, I still don't like it because it was totally telegraphed. Michigan knew exactly what he was going to do, that he wasn't going to pass so all they had to do was get in Triche's way. Third, it was a bad call. Many people think the block/charge call is based on a defender's feet. It's not. It's based on his body from hips to shoulders. In order to be set your body has to be in the spot at the moment the ball handler makes upward motion to the basket. Morgan was not. This should have been a block. But it was a very tough call. Much closer than the horrible one on MCW.



But still, because of Michigan's poor free throw shooting Syracuse got one more chance, down 3 with 10 seconds left and they gave it to Trevor Cooney. Trevor Cooney? Really? That's what the Hall of Fame coach drew up? First of all they should have shot a 3. The chances of making one shot versus making a 2, fouling, getting a miss and making another two are so remote, even a bad 3-point shot (one with a 25% chance of going in) has a better expected win percentage (I'm guessing) than coming through with all those eventualities.

I know Southerland hadn't done too well in this game, missing his first 7 (including one that could have tied it at 48), but he had hit his last two and I would have put the ball in his hands. But alas, the genius of Boeheim entrusted the game to Trevor Cooney.



But the real reason they lost is because only CJ Fair had a good game. James Southerland shot poorly, and became hesitant, turning the ball over a few times. Brandon Triche didn't have his best game, and Michael Carter-Williams was horrible. I'm sure the tears he shed after fouling out were more out of disappointment with his own performance than anything else.



I don't know if it was nerves, or Michigan was better than other opponents, or Syracuse just picked a bad time to have an off night, but it was a subpar performance for a team that had turned in some great ones in March.

Only one team gets to hoist the trophy and the other 67 teams (not to mention the other 270 or so who don't make the tournament) leave with disappointment. It was still a great season, with one bad stretch, and an exciting and thrilling run through the NCAA Tournament that I was glad to have been able to witness in person.



And maybe now that I have finally deleted the game off the DVR, I can start the healing process and get over this horrible defeat.

Going Out on Top, Almost

You've heard the testimonials all week, everyone who loves college basketball is saddened by the demise of the Big East. But instead of being sad, I decided to celebrate it. Billy and I made a vow to each other that we would not miss our last chance to see Syracuse play at Madison Square Garden in the Big East Tournament. Everything was going smoothly early in the season, it seemed like a lock that SU would earn a top 4 seed and a double bye, guaranteeing a Thursday game, but the late season slide messed all that up. But still we took our chances and once the seedings were finalized we bought our tickets to Thursday's afternoon session. We got the tickets on Vividseats.com which is just like stubhub, but it is the official secondary market ticket partner of the Big East Tournament. The tickets were $67, not bad considering the face value was $70, but once we paid the fees and shipping (FedEx), they were $87 each.



We had to sweat out a Wednesday victory over Seton Hall, which earned Syracuse a game against Pittsburgh Wednesday at 2pm. Papa Poop arrived at the game on time but Billy and his dad were late while looking for NYC parking. The first game was a blowout by Georgetown of Cincinnati. Very unremarkable game. And then the SU-Pitt game started. Here's the vantage point from our seats:



Not great, very high up, behind the basket, and in the reconfigured Garden there was a section or a suite above and in front of us so we had no view of the scoreboard. But we did have high-definition monitors right in front of us for score checks and replays.



I decided to wear my Kirby Puckett jersey to honor him on what would have been his 53rd birthday. And the late great Puck brought us some luck. SU got our to an early lead thanks to some great shooting by James Southerland (a pattern), but gave it up in the second half (also a pattern), but managed to hold on for a victory.

So I decided to do it again the next night. Master Bates got free tickets so he invited me and Nails and off we went. I left work a little early and parked my car on 38th and 8th at 6:47. The area was restricted parking until 7, so I hung around, check for parking police and took off at 6:52, taking my chances. I got away with it, luckily, and we arrived at our seats just in time for tip. Our seats were much better than the previous day. The Georgetown student section was right behind the basket and we were in the section facing them on the side.



The game followed a similar pattern as the previous day, Syracuse built a big lead thanks to hot shooting by James Southerland (and even more surprisingly, Trevor Cooney) but blew the lead in the second half when Boeheim slowed the offense down and it went stagnant. Some dubious fouls helped Georgetown tie the game and force overtime, but Syracuse held on for the win.

This game was amazing because James Southerland had 13, so did Baye Keita who made 7 of 7 free throws (I was there, and I watched the entire game again on DVR the next day, and I still went to espn.com to check that stat because it was so hard to believe) and Trevor Cooney had 10. Michael Carter-Williams and CJ Fair combined for 9 points on 4 of 23 shooting.

But Fair did throw down this monster jam in the overtime to help seal it.



This win was particularly satisfying because of the obnoxious Georgetown students in front of us. But also because of the sour taste in our mouths after the huge beatdown in the final regular season meeting. This one was a classic, on the biggest stage for the Big East, and it got a large measure of revenge in the rivalry, which is now officially closed.

And I got to wear my "Your Mother's a Hoya" t-shirt one more time.



Now I suppose I have to talked about the Big East Final, a game which I thankfully had the good sense not to attend. SU got off to another hot start and when James Southerland canned a 3 to make it 45-29 with 16 minutes to go, it seemed like SU would certainly blow the lead, but still be able to hold on. What happened next was a total collapse by Syracuse. James Southerland went out with his 4th foul, and the Orange went about 10 minutes without a field goal. Louisville went on a 44-10 run in that span, turning blowout loss into blowout win in record time.

A few reasons I'm not that upset about the loss:
1) The tangible stakes were very low. SU was only playing for seeding. It got a 4, which is what the team deserved, and may not have gotten a 3 even with a win, though probably would have.
2) It had been a good run. I feel the team rebounded from it's late season slide, found its offense again and has renewed confidence going into the tournament that really matters, even though they got blown out in the second half.
3) Better to get an epic collapse out of the way, and hopefully learn something from it. Like take Southerland out when he had 2 fouls late in the second, and continue to be aggressive on offense even with a lead (more from the previous two games than the one against Louisville.)

Two reasons I am upset about the loss:
1) It would have been nice to have the final Big East Tournament title. It would have been very memorable.
2) James Southerland didn't win Most Outstanding Player. He averaged 15.5 points and 5.5 rebounds but more importantly, he made 19 out of 33 3s. Taking nothing away from Peyton Siva, who had a fine tournament and had been in a good player in his 7 years at Louisville, but it is called the Most "Outstanding" Player. Not valuable, not best on winning time, outstanding. Will anyone remember what Siva did in this tournament? No. Are people going to remember the shooting clinic Southerland put on? Yes! 57% from behind the line, on 8 attempts per game. That will stand out in people's minds. Stand out, outstanding, get it?

Feels Like Old Times

Seeing as how this is Syracuse's final year in the Big East it seemed like a good idea to get to as many games as possible in the old cities before those games were no longer played. I couldn’t go to UConn because it was a Wednesday night, there is no MSG game vs. St John’s but that rivalry is continuing, Rutgers did not host SU this year (maybe I should have planned this better) but we did get one more game against Seton Hall at the Prudential Center.
Billy and Michael were in, Pizza Parlor Derek drove up for the occasion and the entire Beers mispochen made it, though fashionably late.
First order of business was to eat at Dinosaur BBQ, a Syracuse staple, of which the Newark location is basically right in front of the arena.



A really good idea. Such a good idea that everyone else thought of it too. I arrived 3 hours before tip time and was told there was a 4-hour wait. Not sure how reliable that is because so many people were just camping out at their tables and not leaving until the game starts. So we gave up on that and tried to other restaurants which were just as crowded. Then we stumbled into Loft 47, which had an entire section that was closed off. We literally grabbed a table and some chairs and moved it into the seating area. This seemed like a great idea at the time until we realized no server was assigned to a table that previously had not existed. The service was terrible, I was given crab legs instead of a crab lump and it took almost an hour to bring our food which I had to scarf down. But it’s better than standing around Dinosaur for 4 hours.
We finally arrived at the game in plenty of time to take our seats. Seton Hall and the Prudential Center releasing tickets piecemeal, at first offering only the lower bowl. Once that sold out they offered the first two rows of the upper level. And since Ticketmaster now allows you to choose your actual seat, by clicking on a dot, I chose seats that were perfectly aligned with center court. The view was amazing. The seats weren’t great as in being close to the floor, but it was sort of like sitting right behind home plate in a upper level at a baseball game. You’re not close, but the vantage point is amazing.



We got a really good look at the 2-3 zone which got torched early. But then the Orange got hot, especially Brandon Triche and ended the half on a 22-9 run. The rest of the game was pretty unremarkable with SU maintaining a solid lead, but not blowing them out. The best part was the crowd reaction to Fuquan Edwin's baskets. (They're not booing, they're saying Foo.) I tried to convince one of the Beers kids to change his name to Fuquan but they're too savvy for that.

One annoying trend that has emerged recently, and I am guilty of it too (especially when I am unable to check in at a game on Facebook) people spend way too much time on their phones during games. You pay for the ticket, you're surrounded by thousands of people, presumably some of them are your friends and all you do is text on the phone. I forbade people from using their phones while the ball was in play. Pizza Parlor Derek blatantly disobeyed me. I thought he was very disappointed that we didn't get to eat at Dinosaur. But turns out he was just tweeting. After the game I read several funny tweets from him which I would have enjoyed had he just said them to me.

But after the game we did retire to Dinosaur for a drink (not a brisket) and I had a nice chat with PPD. And next time we'll know that we have to arrive at Dinosaur four hours before game time in order to get a table. Unfortunately, there won't be a next time.

My Week With New York's College Team

Syracuse's efforts to brand itself as New York's College Team are going to take a big hit next year when it joins the Atlantic Coast Conference. One showcase it will lose is access to the Pinstripe Bowl in Yankee Stadium, which has obligations to take teams from the Big East and Big XII.

This is the third season of the Pinstripe Bowl and SU's second appearance. I missed the debut game against Kansas State in 2010, which SU won thrillingly. But I wasn't going to miss their second and perhaps last appearance, so as soon as it was officially announced I ordered the tickets for Poppy and me through the Dome Box office. $60 each and only $7 total for shipping and handling, no other fees. Seats were in section 226, the third baseline, second deck 6th. Pretty good seats, along the goal line in the end zone reading Syracuse.

The game was great, SU dominated on the ground, rushing for almost 400 yards, 208 for Prince-Tyson Gulley and 157 for Jerome Smith. SU pulled away in the second half, for a 38-14 win.
The weather really stymied both teams, but I will readily admit that Syracuse is much better equipped to deal with a day such as this when it's hard to throw or catch a pass. The Orange got two safeties, and neither QB threw for 200 yards. At a certain point Syracuse stopped even trying to throw the ball.

The weather actually wasn't that bad from a fan's perspective. The first quarter it rained, which really sucked, but it makes your clothes cold and heavy. But into the second quarter it started to snow lightly which was actually cool. And by the end of the game you could look up and see the perfectly white snow trickling down, set against the pitch black sky.

The worst part of the game were the hooligans seated in front of us. A group of about 10 recent alumni, totally wasted. At first they refused to sit down. At some point they moved to an adjacent section, and remained standing, but out of our line of vision. One of them got so drunk he passed out in the bathroom and security came down to notify his next of kin. Eventually they carried that drunk dumbass back to his seat, literally carried him. But he last only about 5 more minutes before either going underneath or going home. One of his idiotic cohorts almost got into a fistfight with a West Virginia fan, but eventually they calmed down and Poppy and I were able to enjoy the game.

Which is more than I can say about the SU game I went to the previous week, basketball, at Madison Sqaure Garden in something called the Gotham Classic. Seems like a trumped up reason to get a home away from Dome game at MSG.

Billy, who is a baller now, got us some awesome tickets. We were on the sidecourt, opposite the SU bench, looking down the baseline, about 6 rows up in the first section of permanent seats (they have some risers they use for basketball games). Incidentally Scoop Jardine sat in those seats in front of us in the second half and his pants were sagging so low I saw his drawers.

The game was a total disappointment as SU went into an offensive funk early in the second half allowing Temple to take a big lead. SU closed it several times, and actually had the chance to take the lead late when on a fast break Brandon Triche pulled up for 3, inexplicably and missed, giving Temple control of the ball and the game.

The usual suspects hurt SU, shooting 56% from the line and allowing Temple to get 16 offensive rebounds on 36 missed shots.

3 things about Hall of Fame Coach, 900 game winner, Jim Boeheim. He has never figured out how to teach his guys to shoot free throws. And unlike times when he had big men missing free throws and skewing the average, in this game his point guards, Michael Carter Williams and Brandon Triche, shot 9 of 19. I have no idea why he played DaJuan Coleman so sparingly when SU needed rebounding, and boxing out. And I still don't know why he insists on playing such incredibly weak non-conference schedules.

But you win some you lose some and as a fan of SU in New York I will try to keep being there for all of it.