Eddie Sutton Ushered Out Like a USD Fan In the Pepperdine Section!

Holler. To explain the header, unceremoniously (and see below). Day two of the trip, March 8th. Feeling a little more settled, this blog was looking forward to visiting Petco Park, home of the Padres, for a ballpark tour. Pun City headed to the ballpark district for lunch before the big tour.

This blog got tickets first, which ended up being unnecessary since there were only about 10 visitors on the tour. Once this blog had ticket in hand, this blog headed toward where it thought it had seen some restaurants. As it turned out, there weren't a ton of restaurants around. No worries though, it only takes one cool restaurant to be a success.

Basic Pizza was that cool restaurant. It is certainly the most minimalist restaurant this blog has ever visited. A concrete floor, a couple tables rising from the concrete, a concrete bar also coming up from the floor, 2 TVs and a stereo. Pretty badass. Also, a one-page menu where you choose a sauce (3 varieties), then toppings. No dollar signs on the menu and the largest decimal was "1.5" for a couple toppings. Very good pizza though, this blog polished off a cheese and sausage on red sauce. Got a chance to watch a couple games and the bartender was really cool and spinning some good music (Killers, Oasis, among others).

Sauntered over to Petco on a full stomach. Really awesome tour, had a very good host and got to see a lot of good behind-the-scenes areas. Among the good spots: the dugouts, a suite, the suiteholder's private restaurant, and the historic building that serves as the left field foul pole.

The tour concluded at the gift shop, and this blog decided it would pick up some postcards, only to discover.... no credit card. This blog wasn't overly concerned, but this is annoying. Pun City walked back to the start of the tour and the guide was kind enough to walk this blog back to all the tour stops in search of the missing card. The search proved fruitless, but in the midst of the walkthrough, it dawned on Pun City that it was possible Basic Pizza had the card since this blog isn't the most experienced when it comes to using those bill/card holders.

After getting back to Basic, Pun City found that the bartender had the card waiting and had tried to return it to this blog, only to discover Pun City was gone.

In any case, it was good not having to hassle with cancelling a card.

In a spur-of-the-moment decision, Pun City decided to run to San Diego State and try to check out the campus and arena. As it turned out, this wasn't a smooth move, and SDSU had a women's basketball game ending just as this blog arrived. The ushers were in no mood to let this blog see the floor, so Pun City resolved to come back on Monday.

The night's games were Santa Clara vs. San Francisco and host San Diego vs. Pepperdine. Santa Clara's student section was pretty large, so this blog had to move a little further out than it had been the night before.

Santa Clara won a barnburner, 51-50 on 2 free throws with 3 seconds remaining. This ended the coaching career of San Francisco's Eddie Sutton. No real fanfare about it, Pun City is glad it was there though, not too many others were either.

Above: USF Head Coach Eddie Sutton coaches his last game.

The Pepperdine-San Diego game had a pretty humorous scenario occur. Pun City was sitting near Pepperdine's section but not in it. This is an important distinction, because the extremely overzealous usher there would definitely not let anyone in that section without a ticket. Much to the usher's chagrin, somehow the 2 most obnoxious San Diego fans got tickets in this section.

Much hilarity ensued. Most of it centered on the two rowdies screaming at Pepperdine and their fans the entire game, Pepperdine's fans complaining and asking to have the guys' tickets checked, and the usher powerless to do anything since they were sitting (well, standing) in the right seats. All this while the usher was checking tickets for everyone that sat in the section, promptly booting about 90% of all comers. It was pretty comical, the rest of the arena had fairly even distribution of fans and there was this giant void in the Pepperdine section except for a cluster of Waves fans getting berated by the 2 most extreme Torero fans you could imagine.

San Diego rolled, the best sign in the crowd was one exclaiming "Mali-Booo!"