Sorry for the late post (just arrived back from south bend late today), but wanted to share some interesting tidbits from my experience at the Joyce Center yesterday to watch a great upset win in a game we really dominated for 40 minutes.
First and foremost, thanks to a certain owl-loving and generous founder of this board for letting me and Mrs. Ragman sit in what I affectionately call, the "Make a Wish" seats. Words cannot describe what a different game experience that is. If you watched the game, I was the moron in the bowtie behind the SU bench. I like to stick out like a sore thumb in away stadiums, and mission accomplished. Also thanks to my amazing wife who coordinated the whole thing behind my back getting childcare for our two sets of twins all under 4. That's literally about a month of planning.
On to pre-game observations. Joyce Center = no pee-troughs. Boooo. Luckily lines were not long because it's a tiny arena. There's only one level, and it was barely half full minutes before tip. Within a few minutes into the game however, the late arrivers showed and the stadium was surprisingly packed. Not many Cuse fans there, maybe 200 total including player's families. Of note I noticed Rak's guardian Aunt who was one of the loudest people to cheer there.
I had a good feeling about BJ, because I watched him can 16 consecutive 3's in warmups from the righthand corner. Even with no defender, that's damn impressive. Such a smooth and effortless stroke.
While standing just prior to the national anthem, Ron Patterson was the "keeper of the Carmex." Literally, he was passing a tube of carmex around behind everyone's back. A player would take some, and pass it along to the next guy. Like offering of a piece of gum, he offered it to practically the whole team. And unless you were 5 ft away you'd never have known. But now you do.
Speaking of gum, one of the traveling entourage from SU came out of the locker room during warmups and opened a special case for Mike Hopkins letting him choose his weapon (a stick of gum) like the presentation of excaliber. It looked extremely ritualistic and looked to me to be a Hop superstition. Keep your eyes out for that the next time you're at the Dome.
30 seconds before the players took the court before tip, an old friend wandered into the arena and started slapping high 5's with players and coaches alike. It looked like nobody there was expecting him. It was CJ Fair, looking cool as can be but depressed he couldn't lace 'em up one more time too. The players seemed really energized to see their old leader right before the game. I had an empty seat next to me, and when CJ handed his ticket to an usher, I was "pretty pleasing" that he would be sat next to me, but it wasn't meant to be. I would have asked him his opinion on the block/charge rule and if he ever had any notable moments in his career where that rule came into play.
As for the game, you could tell from the opening tip we had them. ND looked scared, took a lot of bad shots, missed a lot of the open shots they did get, and we looked determined. It is clear that Rak and Cooney are the leaders of this team. Cooney is always coaching up the younger guys when he's in and in the time he spent on the bench.
There was a noticable part at the end of the first half when Rak, Gbinje, and Cooney were all on the bench. And in the time they were all sitting, we were +2. Not only is that amazing, but I think it bodes well for next year too.
Kudos to Ronny P for his disruptive D and his ability to slip behind the D for a couple of inside looks. The second was a play they drew up in the Timeout. I knew it was coming and they executed it perfectly. Great call.
The Cooney "3" at the end turned to "2" was right in front of me, and live, he was 2 ft behind the backboard when he let that ball go. Absolutely unreal bailout shot and one of the best circus shots I've seen live.
The Chino rebound with a few minutes left off of a Cooney miss from 3 was HUGE. He had at least 2 ND guys ready for the rebound and he snuck in and took the ball away. Give the kids credit, he made some nice plays out there and that was an unheralded but key means of ticking more time off the clock and very important to the win.
All in all, what a night. Freaking great game and one to remember. Wish we were in the tourney because damned if I don't think we'd create some noise as it's finally all coming together. Watchout Duke. We may not get any call against you, but we'll be firing on all cylinders this weekend.
