College Basketball history, rants and other shit...

College Basketball is my favorite game to watch; from the drunken students on each end of the court, to the buzzer beaters in March, everything about it is exciting.

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February 5th (2001) - Nelson's Hail Mary highlights one of the best games at the Field House, ever. 

I'm still lazy on my hawk reports, but man what an awesome game last Thursday night at the field house.  When you think of great games at the Alumni field house three come to mind.  The upset of Umass,when they had John Calipari at the helm and were ranked, the upset of Tennessee last season and the buzzer beater by Naim Crenshaw against Fordham last year to win in overtime.  An oldie but goodie comes to mind too, but its not so favorable, of course its always mentioned, and was actually in the movie about Hank Gather's life that aired on TV a few years back.  One in which St.Joes led in the waning moments, when out of nowhere Bo Kimble, the Loyola-Marymount standout and brief NBA star, hit a half court heave that silenced the hawk faithful and removed the hopes of an upset.  Upset you say, well yeah it would have been an upset for the Hawks, in hindsight at least, Loyola did get to the final eight, did they not ?  Anyway, all things considered it was a great couple weeks for the Hawks.  They lost to a tough Xavier Musketeer team at the top of their game and on their turf, beat Rhode Island handedly at home, disposed of a gritty Penn team on their home floor(even though it was considered a Hawk's home game, being that it was at the palestra and a big five game), and then came Bonaventure.  All my ranting above was directed toward their match up with the Bonnies, the Hawks couldn't shake St.Bonaventure, even though at one point they led by about 12 with 10 minutes or so to go in the game.  The Bonnies charged back with an unbelievable scoring spurt, by an unlikely source, J.R. Bremer, who nailed at least 4 threes in the second half and gave St. Bonaventure a 5 point lead with only 30 seconds to go.  The Hawks came down the court and Nelson drove, on this drive he was fouled and only made 1 of 2 foul shots.  St.Bonaventure was then fouled by the Hawks, but they also only made 1 of 2 foul shots.  So the hawks came back down, and the Hawks basically just flew by anything Brown on the court, and scored an uncontested lay-up.   So here's the situation, 18 seconds or so and a three point Bonaventure lead.  So of course the hawks foul again, but again St.Bonaventure, I think Bremer, hit only 1 of 2 foul shots.  So now the Hawks have a little air, its only a 4 point lead for the bonnies, so the hawks come down and nelson gets a quick finger roll layup to make the game only a 2 point contest, people who were starting to walk out the door now turned around, actually to be fair to the St.Joes fans, the whole place was still occupied.  After this quick layup, Bonaventure got the ball into the best foul shooter on the court: Marques Green.   Green made the first, but missed the second by inches, thus giving the Hawks an outside shot to tie the game with only 6 seconds left.  When this happened, Eric Woods grabbed the rebound and stood perplexed for a second  trying to decide whether he should call timeout or not, he made a very smart and decisive decision, getting it to Nelson rather then opting for the timeout.  Nelson then raced the ball down the court, reminiscent of Tyus Edney in the NCAA tournament for UCLA, if you don't remember this just ignore it hehe.  When he got near what would have been an NBA three he heaved the ball, everyone stood up and it went in, it pardon my french, fucking stuck a dagger in Jm Baron's back hehe.  The whole place erupted like some Volcano in Costa Rica, and everyone was jumping up and down cheering The Hawk will never die, and Its not over etc... All the fans in the place had a sense, intuition, whatever you want to call it, that the overtime was just an afterthought, the Hawk wasn't dead, but the Bonnies were indeed finished.  In OT, the Hawks made almost all of their foul shots in overtime and sealed the victory 104-97, winning easily in extended play.  This is the biggest SJU victory as of late, they stayed in the running for first place in the A-10 and also gave themselves a really really good shot at getting a good seed in the NCAA's.  IF the Hawks can beat Xavier Wednesday night, then I don't see why they don't get something higher then an 9 in the tourney, barring any catastrophes.  Oh please God, bar catastrophes, this season has been magical......

And it was magical, people.

The 2000-2001 season is forgotten by most St.Joes fans because the Hawks would falter in the 2nd round against a very good Stanford Cardinal team.  But that season marked the end of the Hawks NCAA Tournament drought and the beginning of their winning ways. The following year they would make the NIT, followed by a loss in the NCAA Tournament in 2002-2003 with a not so healthy Delonte West.  The magical season then began for the Hawks in 2003-04

One notable game in the 2002-03 season was a game on March 5th 2003 where a Xavier team with future NBA player David West and sharpsooters Romain Soto and Dedrick Finn came to the Fieldhouse. The Hawks who were down and out in the game (and without Delonte West!), down by 14 at one point midway through the second half mounted an enormous comeback.  The Hawks came back basically on the strength of a 33 point performance by Jameer Nelson who had Allen Iverson type numbers (13-34 shooting).  However, Xavier would eventualyl win the game in overtime, but at one point when the Hawks took the lead after being down 14, I was yelling in my dad's ear at the game and he couldn't hear me at all, it was unbelievably loud and just a really great time, even though they lost the game in OT .

St. Joseph's 2003-04 season undefeated season

In 2003-04 the St. Joseph's Hawks had one of the best big five guard tandems in the big five ever with Delonte West and Jameer Nelson.  The Hawks also had a deadly sharpshooter by name of Pat Carroll, who could drain threes easily and often. The season began with some expectations, everyone knew that with a healthy Delonte West and an ever-improving Jameer Nelson, that they could easily get back to the NCAA tournament.

More on this later.......