When the St. John’s men’s hoops team hit #17 in the AP poll a few weeks ago, TSR told you it was a mirage. The tournament-is-a-cinch buzz you heard around Christmastime was bogus if you watched this team up close.
Well, you can now safely say there will be no dance, no madness for the Johnnies in March.
The way St. John’s played in an OT loss at DePaul in Dosemont Sunday all but clinched the sentiment this team faces relegation to one of the invitationals for also-rans.
I went to the game with Riz and my Dad. I flew into Chicago the morning of the game. We bought $12 seats at the box office and sat opposite the DePaul bench in the upper level.
Attendance was announced at 6243. Capacity at the building formerly known as the Rosemont Horizon is 17,500. Opened in 1980, the arena has aged well. I had a lot of good times in the place as a young guy. DePaul is crazy for playing there. It makes no sense for a city school with a limited following and zero recent basketball success to play in a venue so big and so far away from campus.
A new, modestly-sized facility for DePaul hoops is in the early stages of construction. It’ll be located near McCormick Place in downtown Chicago and is said to be on a timetable that could make it ready for DePaul’s ’16-’17 season. Even that building (10,000 capacity) will seem oversized and out of the way as DePaul hoops drifts further into irrelevancy as seasons go by. The Demons last made the Dance in 2004.
Riz said the only collegiate element at Sunday’s game in Rosemont were the cheerleaders. Few students could be seen in the crowd. St. John’s had some fans there. They watched in disbelief as Rysheed Jordan dished to Chris Obekpa down two with the clock expiring in OT. Lavs would say later he didn’t draw the play up that way but then stopped himself out of concern he was dissing Obekpa who should not be taking critical shots in a huge game unless they’re dunks. Lavin also said D’Angelo Harrison (who should’ve taken that shot) was playing on a bum wheel.
All you have to know about the game really is that St. John’s was outrebounded by a weak DePaul team 43-30. Both teams shot sub-40 percent from the field. It was ugly. At 1-4 in the Big East now, St. John’s has been outrebounded badly in all of their conference games. They have nobody working the glass at all except for Obekpa who’s more interested in swatting.
My Dad and I listened to the Harlan/Fouts call of GB/Seattle on Westwood One in the car on the way back to Huntley. That was fun. A few times I told my Dad that the game was over and that Seattle could not come back.
The next day we went to Rockford to see American Hockey League action. The Rockford Ice Hogs and the Chicago Wolves.
The contest was played at what used to be called the Rockford MetroCentre. Now the boxy, rust-colored arena has the name of a bank on it. Built during the same time period as the Horizon, the MetroCentre is about half its size. It’s surrounded by a downtown neighborhood filled with abandoned buildings. Some glimmers of hope appear to exist however, thanks to beautiful, old housing stock just across the Rock River east of the arena. It was in that neighborhood that we parked on the street for free.
As we walked into the arena, a young couple passed us a pair of free tickets. The seats were great. Center ice behind the sin bins. Scott Darling started in goal for the Ice Hogs who have a formal relationship with the Blackhawks. Lots of fans at the game wore Blackhawks jerseys. The game was very physical. 22-year-old Notre Dame grad and Icehog star defenseman Stephen Johns was drilled hard into the boards in the second period and appeared to suffer a bad injury to his left leg. Johns had just recently finished a lengthy recovery from a serious upper body injury and now faces additional time on the shelf which will only delay further his NHL regular season debut.
The Wolves won 4-1. Down 3-1 with 3:53 left in the third period, Ice Hogs coach Ted Dent made the unusually early decision to pull the goaltender (Darling) in an attempt to narrow the deficit. Rockford was able to mount a few chances but gave up the empty-netter at 18:17. Attendance was 3633. Sixteen-ounce plastic cups of Green Line Pale Ale (Goose Island) cost $7 and hit the spot. The quality of play on the ice was excellent and I would recommend the AHL to any hockey fan.
Walking back to the car after the game, we crossed paths with a group of about 40 people marching up State Street to commemorate the MLK holiday. They chanted “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot.”
My Dad and I had an early breakfast at Mac’s in Park Ridge Tuesday before he dropped me off at the airstrip.
When I took my seat on the bird to LaGuardia, a businessman behind me discussed a Wall Street Journal analysis printed a week ago that ranked United Airlines dead last among major domestic carriers across several categories of performance metrics. As the one guy told the other guy in a suit and tie about the details of this assessment, the one who was listening reacted bluntly. “Sounds about right,” he said.
The two guys were quiet the rest of the flight. We arrived in New York City 10 minutes early.