Red Storm Tip-off 2010

I know this blog is supposed to be about baseball, but the basketball tip-off last night was just too cool to not write about. The expectations for the men's basketball team are very high this year so this was the biggest, most important event during my time as a St. John's student. In previous years, the tip-off was in the cramped field house or there was no event at all (or at least I didn't know about one). ESPN's John Anderson hosted the tip-off, DJ S&S was on the ones and twos, EJ Da Mayor emceed, and Rob Browz was scheduled to perform -- even though he hasn't made a new song in two years.

When I arrived prior to the event, I was told by Karli (my boss) that I was on "pizza duty." Pizza duty may sound mundane, but when you're dishing out slice after slice to underfed college students, it's far from it. However, two things went my way and I was promoted to spotlight duty. The first fortunate occurrence was the original spotlight guy, Chike, coming in late. The second one was Kevin (my boss/flag football captain) looking out for me and making me Chike's replacement. The spotlight was needed only for the player and coach introductions, which meant I only had about 20 minutes worth of work crammed into two hours. But it would be noticeable to the 5,000 people in the arena if I somehow made a mistake (and I say "somehow" because it doesn't take a rocket scientist to operate a spotlight). However, I stayed mistake-free and Kevin and Karli told me that I did a good job.



The men's squad warming up

The spotlight made the introductions a little over the top, but working it got me out of pizza duty so I didn't really mind. Players and coaches came out to the song of their choice and ran through a tunnel created by the cheerleaders and dance team with spotlight shining on them. Senior guard Kevin Clark's song choice probably got the best reaction from the crowd. Being the only whiteboy on the team, Kevin went with "Pretty Fly for a White Guy" by Offspring. Absolutely hilarious.

The scrimmages were more And 1 Streetball than Big East basketball. They were, however, pretty entertaining. Just about every field goal that the men made was a dunk. Freshman forward Dwayne Polee Jr. took the scrimmage the most serious. Just about every time someone would try to pull off a flashy move while he was on defense, he would steal it from them and turn it into a finger roll or a dunk going the other way. The best dunk, however, came from senior guard Paris Horne during the dunk contest. I'm not taking anything away from redshirt sophomore guard Quincy Roberts or Polee, but Paris blew them out of the water when he leapt from the side of the basket, trasferred the ball between his legs and slammed it in with his right hand. The crowd -- including me -- went absolutely nuts. It was the best dunk I've ever seen in person.

Rob Browz closed out the tip-off with performances of "Gimme 20 dollars", "Pop Champagne", "Jumping out the Window", and "Chicken Noodle Soup". Too bad most of the students didn't really care and left as soon as he started performing (the school should have let Fabolous perform). Rob Browz did a pretty decent job though and some random seven year old kid drove the remaining crowd wild with sick dance moves on the court.

Too bad the tip-off only comes once a year because this was a great experience. I believe the tip-off actually succeeded in what it was meant to do -- get students excited for the upcoming basketball season. I know I'm excited. I can't wait until soccer season is over and I can start working basketball games. Speaking of which, I gotta get ready to work tonight's Men's Soccer match.

See ya next time, everyone. Thanks for reading.

Look ma, I got that headset