A Night At The Ballgame

Last night, on a whim, I did something that I had never done even in three and a half years of college. I attended a Saint Louis University Billikens basketball game.

I've gotten jazzed up about the Bills both because of their recent winning ways (6 of the last 7) and the recent announcement that ground will soon be broken on their new 10,000 seat on-campus arena. With only two home games remaining this year I decided I'd better go now while I had the chance.

For a change I was not yelling, "Go Rams!" as the Rams on this night were the University of Rhode Island Rams. I'll admit they are no NCAA powerhouse, but while the Billikens are good, they aren't good enough to make victory a sure thing.

It was fun to sit back and not only watch the action, but to enjoy the pep band, cheerleaders, and dancers who comprise the "Blue Crew". I couldn't help but chuckle when the Rams' starting lineup was announced to a chorus of "WHO'S THAT?", "SO WHAT?", "GO HOME!"

The Billikens pulled out a 73-62 win. The SLU center Ian Vouyoukas had a career high 27 points with a ridiculous 17 of them coming from the free throw line where he was 17 for 18. Having never attended a college basketball game before I was able to see firsthand something that I've heard a lot about on sports radio. Namely the outright horrible officiating. I don't even know much about basketball but it was clear that in many situations the refs call fouls they assume occur. It was really pathetic. Luckily, you can't say they affected the outcome of the game as they were terrible to both teams.

Maybe with wins in their last three games the Billikens can sneak into the NCAA tournament. We'll just have to see. S--A--I-N-T L--O--U-I-S!