I have been very busy lately, too busy to hang out here and stuff. I am gearing up to get really busy, but before I do, I think I am going to kill some precious time to tell you all about the BC-FSU basketball game I went to last night.
As we all know, to make things interesting, BC’s coach Al Skinner, kicked the leading shot blocker in the nation, Sean Williams, off the team last week, along with Akida McLain. Then the Eagles went to Clemson and got whupped this past weekend. That sucked, so much so that I think that Bambi’s (At my wife’s request, I am no longer referring to her by her real name here. Too many creeps and weirdos are google stalking her. I’ll change her name elsewhere in PriorBlog when I get the chance, but like I said, I’ve been really busy.) boss, a season ticket holder, decided to give up her tickets to last night’s game. Luckily for me, Bambi nailed them.
This is the same way that I got to see BC beat Michigan State earlier in the season, so it was the second time in the same seats for me. The seats are pretty good, but I like to get a little closer to the action, and move to the concourse behind the basket for the second half. One thing that bothers me about the seats: one of the other nearby season ticket holders, always rides Sean Marshall really hard, making comments about how “stupid” he is and stuff like that. When she was doing this at the Michigan State game, I really wanted to turn to her and tell her off, but I was prevented from doing so because I am a coward.
Last night about 30 seconds into the game, Marshall did make kind of a dumb foul, and wouldn’t you know it, you know who was off to the races, muttering and grumbling about Marshall’s alleged stupidity. Again, I wanted to say something, but since this was my second time around with this woman nearby, I knew she was a season ticket holder and she was probably friends with Bambi’s boss, so if I did lay into her, it would probably get back to my ticket source and I would never get free tix ever again. Plus, don’t forget my cowardice.
Anyhow, since he knew I wouldn’t stand up for him. Marshall played really well in the first half to shut this woman up on his own, although he did pick up another foul.
My buddy Paul and I headed behind the BC basket on the concourse for the second half with the game knotted up at 41. On the way to our spot we saw former BC hoops stars Billy Curley, Mark Molinsky (90% sure it was him), and Malcolm Huckaby (93% sure it was him). Being so close to Huckaby and Curley for the start of the second half gave the game a nice touch of heritage. Considering that the theme of the previous week had undoubtably been exile, seeing the old stars benevolently watching from above, was to wonder whether they were not attending the game like the rest of us, but rather tending, in their Olympian way, to the fate of their progeny, blessing them, with just the gentlest touch from above. The kids on the floor, seemingly dispirited during pre-game warm ups, needed it.
About half way through the second half BC was down by 7, thanks in large part to Marshall having to sit with four fouls. He came back into the game with about five minutes to play. BC was two posessions down for awhile. They’d score to get within two, and then Al Thornton, FSU’s star, would score to get FSU’s lead back to four. The clock was ticking. Then, with FSU up by a bucket with about a minute and a half left, Shamari Spears came up with a big steal for BC. Now they would finally have a chance to tie the game.
But they didn’t tie the game, they took the lead on a three pointer by Tyrese Rice. It was the culmination of an incredible game for Rice, who time after time took the ball right through the FSU defence for acrobatic lay ups. Each time he drove through the lane, I would think, “what the hell is he doing?” and just as I completed that thought the ball would find itself in the net. Of the twenty-six points for Rice last night, about twenty of them were of the breath-taking variety.
Both teams then traded buckets to make the score 81-80 BC, with the ball belonging to Florida State for the final twenty-seven seconds. There was a time out. FSU was sharpening the death blade, making sure it would go straight through the heart. Again they went to Thornton, who took the shot, but this time Jared Dudley was all over him, and Thornton missed. BC got the rebound, and Marshall was fouled with seventeen seconds to go.
Marshall missed the first free throw, and even though we were far from the anti-Marshallite in the first half seats, I knew she was revelling in her misery, probably happy when you cut right through it, at this failure, although she must have been somewhat brought back to earth by him making the second shot, to give BC a two point lead. FSU then got fouled on their end of the court, and the kid on the foul line, I forget who, I just remember it wasn’t Thornton, made both shots to tie the game. After squandering a few seconds BC finally called time with five seconds left.
When they got back on the court, the ball was inbounded to Marshall, who drove to the right side of the court way out in three point range. As he began his shot, in the chaos, in that frenetic pace which is so lethal to the intentional object, it appeared to me as though every Florida State arm was raised around him, even the guys on the bench. Later I was to read that he was merely double teamed, but later is never as exciting as the poorly apprehended present, and Marshall, in his white uniform, like a lone birch in a forest of oaks, got the shot off…
As the ball was in the air, there had to be a flicker of tension up in the seats where our dear friend the Marshall hater was sitting, the great roar of her inexplicable hatred brought toe to toe with that of her own hopes, with the hopes of the rest of the crowd, with the hopes of Malcolm Huckaby, Billy Curley, Mark Molinsky, with those of Sean Williams and Akida McLain even, with the grand and everlasting communion of BC basketball fans. The ball situated itself into the net with such perfection, that if all of the artists in the Louvre had been given an eternity to do so, they would undoubtably fail to reproduce an arc of such extreme transcendence. Swish.
While I was doing all that I could not to cry, Marshall ran into the crowd, and was hoisted up by the arms of the student body. His jersey had been cast off, his tatooed arms swung mightily, leading the chaos like a conductor.
“If when we have Sean Williams I ever say:
“Ah, malinger on, thou art so tall!”
Then may you double- nay, triple team me,
Then will I perish, then and there!
Then may the final buzzer sound, recalling
Then from your service you are free;
The clock may stop, the 3-pointer falling,
And time itself be past for me!
Go BC!”
–Goethe (as translated by David Prior)