What Price Free Hat?

Trip Recap #3 - March 3rd, Richmond VA. Woke up quick, at about noon. Headed to a fast-food restaurant Pun City had seen the night before, a place called "Bullets." Solid, this blog will get a review of that up shortly. Virginia Commonwealth was taking on Georgia State after GSU's miraculous win the day before.

Above: Richmond Coliseum's unique roof supports.

VCU cruised, and given this blog's scoring rule, the game was over when VCU led by 11 with 10:37 remaining.

The next game featured Drexel versus Northeastern. This game was interesting on several fronts. First, this blog had gotten tickets from Drexel's ticket office, so it was the first game which this blog's section had a sizeable contingent on hand. As one of the guys sitting behind this blog said, after having sat through 5 games which he had only a minor interest in, "Finally, a game I care about!"

This blog cared about the same as the previous 5 incidentally.

This blog had noticed the guys sitting behind it were pretty talkative, somewhat annoying previously. This blog was also aware it was sitting in the Drexel seating section, but all of the pieces hadn't quite come together until this game, when this blog realized......

Pun City was surrounded by a bunch of Philadelphia sports fans. This blog is going to say that the fans hadn't met their over-the-top billing yet, and Drexel University isn't the most common team one thinks of when it thinks of Philadelphia sports. But sure enough, mixed in among the Drexel apparel around this blog's section was a healthy amount of Phillies hats, Eagles jerseys, and general affinity for cheesesteaks.

This blog's first thought: "Aw crap, Philly fans." However, after further review, this blog is stunned to proclaim: Philly fans are awesome. Very hilarious at times, a bit extreme other times, but generally knowledgeable and fun to be around during a game. Some highlights:

-Drexel's student section employs what this blog would call a "hypercount," where they start with the actual remaining shot-clock time, but just count it down at about 3 times the actual pace. This worked extremely well, getting Northeastern to force up early shots on at least 4 occasions. Nice work on that.

-This blog guesses that Northeastern's student section is fairly well-known around the conference for making giant roll-out signs that they show the other team's fans, then rip up. Drexel came prepared for this, which was very funny. Northeastern's main sign was "Chaz Drinks Zima," referring to Drexel's Chaz Crawford and, well, Zima. Drexel's students countered with "Screw Clam Chowder - Gimme A Cheesesteak," and "Northeastern = Wicked Awful." Given that Northeastern is based in Massachusetts, this was good stuff.
Above: Northeastern's Student Section

-The PA announcer at Richmond Coliseum, for whatever reason, chooses to use the expression "spells" for every substitution. As in, "Frank Elegar spells Chaz Crawford." As almost every sports fan realizes, when a starter re-enters for a backup, he's not exactly there to "spell" him. This didn't phase the PA announcer, who used it every single time. This blog had picked up on how annoying this was, but hadn't quite nailed down the best way to mock the situation, until...

-This blog was supplied with several great lines from one row behind on this very situation:
PA: "Tremayne Hawthorne spells Dominick Mejia." One Row Back: "With an H instead of a J"
PA: "Bobby Jordan spells Bashir Mason." One Row Back: "Good, 'cause I can't fuckin' spell that."

-DU fans also were decrying the media for failing to name Frank Elegar first-team All-CAA, which was a fair argument since the first team featured 4 guards, one forward, and no centers. Presumably if 2 forwards or 1 center had been on the team, as with most standard teams, Elegar would have been the big man selected.

-One somewhat annoying part of the DU fans was their accent, which was most pronounced when shouting star player Dominic Mejia's nickname, coming out (roughly) as "Dawhm!" A small price to pay however, Philadelphia fans' knowledge and humor were a great combo while watching the games.

After Drexel dismantled Northeastern, most of Drexel's fans cleared out of this blog's section. This was cool, but the usher in this site's section repeatedly checked Pun City's ticket when returning to the seat. This was ridiculous in that: a) This blog made a point to make eye contact with the usher each time this blog left the section, at times less than 2 minutes before returning to a ticket check, and b) There were only about 9 fans left in this blog's section, so it wasn't like it was tough to remember. This analysis doesn't even include the "Who cares if someone's in these empty seats?!!" factor. This blog chalks it up to a bad individual usher, Pun City didn't have any problems the other 3 days with different ushers.

Towson didn't have a large number of fans show up to the 3rd game, but it was cool when student fans from both Virginia Commonwealth and George Mason flooded into the Towson section and started wildly cheering for the Tigers. Unfortunately this was not quite enough and Old Dominion took them out 58-55.

Before the last game of the evening, this blog had a weird encounter that might cause it to use a little more caution the next time it starts hunting down freebies.

Here goes: This blog had noticed the Army table was handing out bags, but you couldn't get a free hat from them, it seemed as though those were reserved for student sections, where they would get on TV more. At any rate, this blog sees one of the recruiters walking with about 6 hats in his hand. This blog figures he's going to throw them out at some point and starts following him. He ends up not throwing them out, but instead giving them to some of the ticket takers to hand to students later. The ticket taker, in turn, sets the hats on a ticket window. This blog was looking to see where exactly they ended up, and also if this blog could snag one.

In order to see the front of a ticket window from inside the Richmond Coliseum, one has to position themself fairly close to an exit. This blog assures you that one can easily do so without actually leaving the building. So that's what this blog did. And, sure enough, the hats were just sitting there, no one handing them out. But to get one, you'd need to exit and re-enter. This blog wasn't about to do that, free hat or not, so it just headed back into the concourse and walked around for a while. After a short walk, this blog returned to the same spot to see if they were now handing out the hats. No dice, they were still on the ticket counter.

However, this time, Pun City hears someone say, "Hey buddy, stop!" This blog's got nothing to hide, so it stops, heads back toward the voice. It's an usher, positioned on the hat side of a fence (far side from Pun City). He asks to see my ticket, so I dig it out, show it to him. This blog thinks he was trying to catch this blog sneaking into the game from the nearby exit. Then he asks if the ticket's been scanned in. Well, yeah, obviously. His next comment was a little unnerving: "Since I saw you leave, technically I can't let you back in...." This blog is immediately thinking "What!?? Pun City hasn't come within 3 feet of the exit!! You cannot be serious!!"

A bunch of options are running through this blog's head. This usher is on the other side of a fence, so there's always the flight response, which would certainly work in the short term, but there's a good shot that this blog eventually gets caught and/or has to watch a good portion of the late game from the upper deck in hiding or something. This also would bring on the chance of getting thrown out of the next 2 days' games, not an option. So this blog says:

"But (Pun City) didn't leave. (Pun City) never stepped outside the building." This blog figures that it's theoretically possible this blog had stepped into some kind of "DMZ" that counted as leaving the building when you haven't physically left, so it's not going to completely blow up on the guy just yet. At this point the usher, who clearly hadn't seen this blog leave, also probably not wanting to have to scale a fence if this blog decided to bail, "let" Pun City off with a warning, saying something to the effect of "Well I'll let you go."

Above: George Mason's Student Section

So it became clear that Pun City hadn't been in a DMZ and the usher was probably just trying to flex a little. At any rate, no harm, no foul, and this blog was able to see George Mason take down Hofstra for their 2nd win of the tournament in the nightcap. A bonus was George Mason's band director, who looks like George Jefferson's pimp brother. Very entertaining. Just like Pun City's night, for better or worse.

What's a Food Court without a mall? Sbtrange.

Trip Recap #2 - The second half of 3/2. Delaware was taking on Northeastern in the next set of games. Delaware's cheerleaders were a definite A- in the looks department, topping out at completely stunning. Another cool part of Delaware being there was that Spencer Dunkley was being honored. Of course, avid sports fans recognize him as the 50th-best sports figure from the state of Delaware.

Delaware ran into issues since their entire roster consisted of 7 players. This blog detailed their plight here.

Northeastern didn't have too much to report, although there was one fan wearing a Mexican wrestling mask in their colors. This was sort of cool on its own, especially when coupled with a cape. The dude then outdid himself by becoming the first person this blog has ever seen smoking a cigarette through a wrestling mask. As if that wasn't enough, the guy ended up stepping away from the butt long enough to win the halftime free-throw-shooting contest. Really weird.

Once that game ended, headed over to what this blog thought was a mall next to the stadium (the arena had to be cleared for the next session). The "mall" was in fact just a food court. This was unusual as well. The fact that it wasn't a full mall ended up being somewhat of a bummer the rest of the trip, since the Richmond Coliseum isn't really within walking distance of too many points of interest. The Coliseum area is populated by a lot of government buildings, that food court, a ton of parking structures, hotels, and a few stores or restaurants barely within walking distance.

Most of the "walkable" businesses aren't in the greatest area of town, but this blog didn't get any trouble. The Foot Locker within walking distance was a typical Foot Locker that sells a lot of blank t-shirts and an occasional shoe. If you went through the less-than-affluent area, eventually you get to Virginia Commonwealth's campus, which was a little sparse but probably would be a cool place to go to school. It was sparse in that there aren't a whole lot of food options outside of the immediate library area, but within that area there were some good choices. Quizno's, Cold Stone Creamery, Qdoba, and non-chain pizza and burger places. (Maybe they were chain places, but this blog hasn't seen either of them outside of those locations).

The night session featured Towson beating UNC-Wilmington. Of note from that game is that Towson's band and general representation was pretty cool. The mascot was cool, they featured Gary Neal who scores over 20 points per game, solid cheerleaders, and a good coach. Their band played "Jumpin' Jack Flash," "Disco Inferno," "Sweet Georgia Brown," "Holiday (by Green Day)", "Somebody Told Me," CBS's College Basketball theme, and the obligatory "Eye of the Tiger." This plus an awesome version of the Star-Spangled Banner that you had to hear to believe.

UNCW, in a rebuilding year, had a student section wearing shirts that read "Feel My Teal." Which might be a good pickup line in certain scenarios.

And the last game of the night featured George Mason blowing out James Madison in the duel of Revolutionary War-era hero schools.

Mark Macon Looks Like Xzibit

Good evening Pun City readers - Let's get into some trip recapping.

First things first, this blog awoke at approximately 3:00 AM Central time in order to make a 5:45 AM flight. This was brutal given that this blog hadn't gotten to sleep until about 12:30.

(This site does recognize it was its own doing on the lack of sleep - retrieving a laptop from Madison at 10:00 PM and scheduling a flight early Friday instead of late Thursday were measures this blog took to keep some people relatively updated and keep this blog's costs lower)
The drive down featured a total of 8 cars on this blog's side of the freeway, which was remarkably desolate for the Cedarburg-to-Milwaukee stretch of I-43 south.

The initial connecting flight to St. Louis was uneventful, other than being empty enough where this blog could occupy 2 seats and catch up on some sleep.

The St. Louis to Richmond flight was a little more interesting. First off, because this blog was wearing its George Mason jersey and got some minor ribbing from an Old Dominion fan heading to the same spot; and secondly because of the stewardess on the American Airlines flight.

Despite general stereotypes, stewardesses are virtually never hot. This blog surmises that of all female stewardesses, the average (on a scale of 10) is probably a 3 in the looks department. This blog has rarely seen higher than a 4.5. On this particular flight, however, there was a 20-year-old stewardess named Andrea. She was a solid 6.5. Sadly, that's the hottest real stewardess this blog has ever seen. This blog gleaned that she was on one of her first flights where she wasn't "tagging along" as a trainee, and she did a good job.

This blog is somewhat surprised that there aren't stewardess ratings out there, at least not widely-known ones. A precursory search found no ratings on attractiveness or service quality for stewardesses. This blog would think this could be a realistic site to set up, especially for frequent flyers. Pun City isn't sure how useful this information would be, but there's probably a market out there that would pay more to fly with more attractive and/or more friendly stewardesses.

The first game of the trip was to be Georgia State vs. William and Mary. Immediately, this blog noticed one of Georgia State's assistant coaches. The first thought was, "Whoa, that looks like Xzibit." The next thought was "Whoa, that looks like Mark Macon." Still not sure which one it was, you be the judge:

And from there, this blog saw an awesome game: this game to be exact. Fantastic finish, easily the best game of the trip. This blog then spoke to a local that claimed "half of William and Mary's crowd opens up a book to read at the half," and claimed that one WMU supporter "didn't mind they lost because half of the team has a Physics test on Monday." Amusing, though possibly embellished.

Here are some photos from the game:

Georgia State's student section. A little sparse. Possibly due to the long drive and the fact this game was at noon on a Thursday.

William and Mary's student section. Shouldn't have been this sparse since it was a fairly short drive.

Live Cast is on the Air!

Good day, Pun City reporting live from the VCU lower library, they have some computers set up that you can use. This blog figured it would get up a post as long as it was using a computer that supported whatever programs Blogger requires. Here's some interesting (hopefully anyway) notes from the games.

- The CAA honored Georgia State alumnus Chavelo Holmes at the half of one of the games. They mentioned that he had outscored Michael Jordan in a game vs. UNC 20-16. Also of note was that he went from being a walk-on to the school's all-time leading scorer.

-Georgia State has Mark Macon as an assistant coach. He used to play at Temple and several stops in the NBA, including the Denver Nuggets. Unfortunately the B-Lab doesn't have the capability to open multiple windows, so you'll have to take this blog's word for it that he looks a lot like rapper Xzibit.

-A comment overheard in the "CAA Zone," sort of a de-facto milling lounge set up for non press members, was that William and Mary, known for rigourous academic standards, has half of their fans sit and open a book at halftime. This site heard the comment only after the only halftime where WMU played, but it's at least a good joke if not actually the case.

-William and Mary's sports teams are known as "The Tribe." Their dance team is known as "The Tribal Dancers."

-All fans seemed supportive of George Mason's Final 4 run last year, especially satisfied with the fact that they beat UNC, whose fans apparently rile a lot of these schools.

-The University of Delaware now carries a roster of only 7 players. (It's for a lot of reasons, voluntary defections, injuries, academic ineligibility). This caused an interesting, if not unexpected scenario toward the end of their 77-67 loss to Northeastern. With 2:06 remaining, they had a player foul out. This left them with 6 players, but 2 had 4 fouls and another had 3. Then needing to foul again with 1:57 left, one of the 4-foul players committed it, leaving them with only 5 players, 1 of which had 4 fouls, another having 3. This was about the only interesting part of what remained of the game, but this was Very interesting. What would they do if anyone else fouled out? Would it be a "Hoosiers" moment where they send out 4? Is that even legal in the NCAA? (If you actually know that, Pun City would like to know, this blog hasn't heard of that coming up). Alas, despite the 3-foul guy picking up another one, no one fouled out and we never came to what would have been really fascinating. (They didn't even have any managers ready to go, basically no contingency plan if it came to it).

Some selections from each band:

-Georgia State: "Rock & Roll Part 2", "Jump on it (That Apache/Tonto one)", Beyonce's "Crazy In Love," "Hot Stuff."

-William & Mary: "Proud Mary," whatever that "Jeremiah was a bullfrog.." song is.

-Delaware: Smashmouth's "Walkin' On The Sun," "Zoot Suit Riot," "SportsCenter theme," and Aretha Franklin's "Respect."

-Northeastern: Band not present. Lame.

-UNC-Wilmington: Whatever song Lil Romeo sampled to make "Girlfriend," (Jackson 5, not sure what the title is though), "Jungle Boogie," "Final Countdown," "Get Ready (Here I Come)", "Hey Baby" (the band version, not the No Doubt version unfortunately), "Rock & Roll Part 2."

-Towson - the best band at the tournament:
-"Jumpin' Jack Flash," "Disco Inferno," "Holiday" by Green Day, "CBS NCAA intro," "Eye of the tiger," (that was somewhat predictable given they're the Tigers), an awesome version of "Star Spangled Banner" with multiple harmonies and improvisational-like flourishes, "Sweet Georgia Brown," "Somebody Told Me," by the Killers.

-James Madison: "On Broadway," "I'm so Happy."

-George Mason: "Very Superstitious," "We Will Rock You," "Living On A Prayer," (a ton).

Those were the first day, this blog hopes to get some more info, but it's been standing upright throughout the whole post and needs to take a break.

Live Look-In: Potential Games on the Pun City Hoops Trip

As you may know, Pun City is heading on a college hoops vacation this March. This blog is taking in the Colonial Athletic Association's tournament, then moving on to see a round of the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference tournament, then on to the Atlantic 10's tournament.

Here's what games Pun City would see if the season ended today.

March 2 - Colonial

Noon: 8 Northeastern vs. 9 Georgia State - A former America East team takes on a former Atlantic Sun team in the first CAA game of the tournament.

2:30 PM - 5 George Mason vs. 12 Delaware - George Mason, currently occupying a higher conference standing than 2006 Final Four compadre LSU, will need to win this tournament to have a chance to return to the Final Four.

6:00 PM - 7 William & Mary vs. 10 James Madison - Lots of names here. Not many chances of NIT or NCAA appearances though.

8:30 PM - 6 Towson vs. 11 UNC-Wilmington - The conference's leading scorer (Towson's Gary Neal) faces the defending conference tournament champs, who have since fallen into 2nd-last place in the CAA. UNC-Wilmington does have the cool "Seahawks" nickname going for them.

March 3 - Colonial

Noon - 1 Virginia Commonwealth vs. 8/9 winner - VCU looking very good this year with former Florida assistant Anthony Grant at the helm.

2:30 - 4 Old Dominion vs. 5/12 winner - Last year, led by since-graduated Alex Loughton, ODU went to the Elite 8 of the NIT.

6:00 - 2 Hofstra vs. 7/10 winner - Hofstra was arguably the "last team out" of the 2006 NCAAs. They might need to at least make the CAA final to get an at-large bid this year.

8:30 - 3 Drexel vs. 6/11 winner - The Dragons currently have the 126th-best strength of schedule, which is highest among CAA teams that would have a first-day bye.

March 4 - CAA Semifinals

March 5 - CAA Final (7:00 PM)

March 6 - MEAC

6:30 PM - 8 Coppin State vs. 9 Howard - First of 2 games watching the worst teams from the 2nd-worst conference in the NCAA. Both of these schools have actually made the tournament in the last 10 years though.

9:00 PM - 7 Hampton vs. 10 Bethune Cookman - Hampton is famous for their 15 vs. 2 upset of Iowa State in 2001.

March 7 - 12: Atlantic 10

This blog has gotta get some sleep, but those games will be awesome as well. Hopefully a full-scale preview can be completed for the A10 before next week's regularly-scheduled post. For now, this blog would recommend reading this. Very cool report from Dank on ESPN's College GameDay in Columbus.