Seeing a legend

Erin and I headed to the St. Anthony's-Catholic Memorial game at Newton North High School around 4pm yesterday and got there around 4:45. There was already a big crowd when we got there for the 5:30pm game and it only got more packed. Once the game was underway, there was hardly a seat in the house with hundreds of people standing in the back.

The St. Anthony team was very professional during warm-ups, doing drills, stretching, defensive drills, etc. CM, however, was just shooting around. The guy behind me asked his son which team was being more effective. His son asked, "What does effective mean?"

The game was surprisingly even in the first half with CM playing strong defense and St. Anthony's missing a ton of easy lay-ups and free throws. St. Anthony's had a small 6 point lead going into halftime. The half ended with St. Anthony's being called for two straight fouls - one offensive and then another on the next play on defense. Bobby Hurley was not happy and gave the refs a piece of his mind as they headed to the locker room. Everyone was watching him as he talked to the ref near center court.

St. Anthony's dominated the second half with CM unable to keep up. They were crisper with their shooting, they were hitting the easy shots, and they controlled the boards (they made three offensive rebounds on one set alone). CM was getting tired with St. Anthony's seeming to have more stamina. They also had more height and CM just couldn't match up with them. In the end, St. Anthony's won by over 20 points.

Like I said, the place was packed. In front of me were a bunch of students from CM. CM is in West Roxbury and is an all boys school (they're actually the rivals of my alma mater BC High). They were taunting the St. Anthony's team during the game which is par for the course (it reminded me of when I was in school). However, it was a little uncomfortable at times to see a group of white kids from a wealthy school in white West Roxbury taunting a group of black kids from a poor school in black Jersey City. They were fair weather fans anyways - they left after the third quarter.

Anyway, I am so glad I went. We saw some great basketball as well as a legend. I said to the kids behind me that they can always say they saw the best high school basketball coach in history. Me too.

Photo from Boston Herald article on the game. See it here.