A Game Unlike Any Other

So, last night, I took my daughter to her first live college basketball game— Georgetown vs. St. John’s , at Madison Square Garden.

She told me it was the best game she’d ever seen, which is a little bit sad—I’m such a bad father!—because the playing was pathetically lopsided. Georgetown was up 41-14 at halftime and, in truth, the game wasn’t even as close as that hopeless score seemed to show.

Even Faith, a diehard Hoyas fan who brought her stuffed Georgetown mascot to the game, was rooting for St. John’s to do something—anything—when the score reached 31 to 5 after fifteen minutes of play. Worse, all five of St. John’s points had come on free throws. The team’s first basket came with around 4:30 left in the half. Everyone in the arena stood up to cheer when St. John’s Justin Burrell finally hit a bank shot to break the ice-cold streak.

Faith reminded me, though, of perceptions I had forgotten over the years. Well, not forgotten, exactly, but stopped paying attention to. The excitement of a crowd, the ear-bending noise of the public-address system, the nearness of people in the neighboring seats, the distraction of the strolling venders with their cotton candy, peanuts, and beer.

After you’ve seen a lot of games in high-school gyms and college arenas and professional domes, you automatically correct in your mind the distortions of the view you get of basketball on television. But Faith had only watched games with me on screen, and she was struck by the facts that I forget to warn her about: The players are so big, she said in awe, and the court seems so small. It’s true—the court on television always seems bigger than it really is, and we lack perspective for the players’ size. You forget, until you see it in person, what it means that Georgetown’s center, Roy Hibbert, is more than seven feet tall.

Anyway, a sleepy cab ride back from the Garden, and home to bed, with the Georgetown mascot tucked in beside her. A blowout like this game would not have been my choice for her first live game. But better that than a Georgetown loss. Hoya Saxa!