There’s a certain atmosphere to college basketball that’s different from anything else. From the multitude of events I have attended, whether they be Army football games or pro wrestling shows, nothing seems to feel as different as a college basketball game. There’s just a certain palpable emotion that college basketball brings that you can’t get anywhere else. When the home team is up or the game is close, the crowd is as electric as it can possibly be. But when the home team is down big, it’s dead silent, only exception being the occasional cheers from the fans of the away team.
Due to being an Iona student, tickets to home games were free. So, I decided to head to Iona’s home opener on Nov. 12 against the University of Delaware Blue Hens.
My day up until tip-off followed the same as it usually does. I went to class, helped out my friends at Bailando con Sazon, our Latin Dance club on campus, with their bake sale, did my work, and hung out with my friends. All of the things I would do on a usual day.
Doors opened at 6 p.m., but I didn’t show up until about a half hour later. After getting my ticket scanned, I entered a somewhat empty Hynes Athletic Center, better known as the H.A.C. or just Hynes. But, as it got closer to tip-off, more and more people filed into the center. By tip-off, both the student section, where I was sitting, and the section opposite of it were full, with the sideline sections being almost full.
The game started around 7 p.m., and the crowd was lively for the most part. Early on, you could tell the crowd already had some fan favorites. Guards Adam Njie, James “Biggie” Patterson, and Dejour Reaves received bigger reactions from the Iona faithful than most.
The crowd was the most awake during the first half during performances from Iona’s cheer and dance teams during timeouts and when forward Kernan Bundy and Delaware guard Tahron Allen almost got into a fight late in the first half.
As for the game, Iona got out to a hot start but was outclassed overall by Delaware. Iona tried to play big, running a backcourt of forwards Clarence Rupert and Yaphet Moundi, but was playing that style with all of its inherent disadvantages and none of its advantages.
The second half saw the crowd and the Gaels reach their peak in the game. The Gaels rallied from being down 12 in the first half to keep it within five for most of the first half.
The turning point of the game wasn’t seemingly an on-court event. At around 8:42 p.m., or about 7:05 left in the second half, a fight broke out between two people in the seating area to the right of me, which wasn’t in the student section but caused a lot of the people around me to notice it and turn away from the game to observe the situation.
This might all be purely coincidental, but after this fight in the stands, the Gaels made a full comeback.
The Gaels and the crowd peaked at about 1:30 left in the game when Njie crossed up Delaware’s Izaiah Pasha before assisting a 3 from Reaves to put the Gaels up by 1. The H.A.C. was the loudest I had heard all night, and everyone in the student section was on their feet in excitement, hoping for this to lead to the Gaels’ first win of the season.
This, however, wasn’t the case, as missed free throws and a 3-pointer from Delaware forward Cavan Reilly with about 26 seconds left caused people to leave their seats. I stayed until Njie’s missed 3-pointer with 3 seconds left before leaving myself, as the game was all but finished at that point.
The biggest problem for the Gaels was their shooting. The team shot 4-for-22 from beyond the arc and 10-for-22 from the free-throw line. A lot of Delaware’s strategy on defense towards the end was to send Moundi, who had a great game with 16 points and 18 rebounds, to the free-throw line, where he shot a less-than-stellar 4-for-12.
The players that excelled for the Gaels in their previous two games, like Njie and Reaves, were off, shooting a combined 9-for-31 from the field despite scoring 22 of Iona’s 58 points. If the Gaels can remain more consistent on offense while still playing the scrappy defense that got them back into the game against the Blue Hens in the second half, they’ll certainly recover from an 0-3 start.
Despite the loss, my experience at the Hynes Athletic Center was nothing but great. Both from a technological standpoint within the arena itself and from experiences there, I feel like it’s one of the premier places to visit in the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference.
