I continued my tour of the 16 lower-division basketball gyms in NYC with a visit to York College, which is located a short walk from Jamaica Center, the terminus of the E train. I chose to get off one stop earlier to get lunch at the Tim Horton's located at the Air Train station and brought it to the game, as there is no food for sale there.
The team plays out of the creatively named York College Gymnasium, a cool building where the gym is circular (above). I did notice a sign indicating the school had won 31 CUNYAC (City University of New York Athletic Conference) titles in its history; this was across all sports and not just basketball.
Entry is free and are a few trophy cases in the lobby holding some of those 31 trophies and other memorabilia. Pick up a game program just inside the entrance to the gym proper.
These are a couple of the many banners highlighting those championships, with the last one coming in basketball in 2007.
As is usually the case with these smaller gyms, just one side of bleachers was available. You can kind of see the circular shape of the roof in the photo below.
These are a couple of the many banners highlighting those championships, with the last one coming in basketball in 2007.
More interesting are the ECAC banners; the team won the Metro title in 1998. ECAC is not a traditional conference as it comprises schools across all three divisions, all of whom belong to another conference which determines their NCAA eligibility.
One nice touch is that the anthem was performed by the P.A. announcer and it came after the lineups were introduced. That is all you need to know about this place. I doubt any readers will be going to York College for a game as New York City has a few more compelling venues, but I still enjoyed my time here. At least until the game started.
The Game
The NYU Violets had made the trip from Manhattan coming in ranked #22 in a D-III hoops preseason poll and sporting a 3-0 record, while York was 0-4, including a couple of blowout losses. One thing that intrigued me when looking over the lineups is that every player but one on the York squad was from NYC or Long Island, while only one NYU player was from the city, with some coming from California, Hawaii, and even Nigeria, suggesting they would have the better squad.
It didn't take long for that to be proven true. The Violets drained 4 of their first 5 shots from downtown and midway through the half had nailed 10 of 12, plus most of their interior shots too. Meanwhile, York missed nearly everything, going 12 minutes and 39 seconds without a point. NYU continued to hit shot after shot, going on a 39-0 run. Yes, thirty-nine straight points. It was both fascinating and brutal to watch.
The NYU Violets had made the trip from Manhattan coming in ranked #22 in a D-III hoops preseason poll and sporting a 3-0 record, while York was 0-4, including a couple of blowout losses. One thing that intrigued me when looking over the lineups is that every player but one on the York squad was from NYC or Long Island, while only one NYU player was from the city, with some coming from California, Hawaii, and even Nigeria, suggesting they would have the better squad.
It didn't take long for that to be proven true. The Violets drained 4 of their first 5 shots from downtown and midway through the half had nailed 10 of 12, plus most of their interior shots too. Meanwhile, York missed nearly everything, going 12 minutes and 39 seconds without a point. NYU continued to hit shot after shot, going on a 39-0 run. Yes, thirty-nine straight points. It was both fascinating and brutal to watch.
The post holding the basket blocks the first digit of the score in the photo below, so you might think it was 53-48 or 53-38. Nope, it was 53-8. NYU sank 14 of 22 from beyond the arc in the first half while York bricked all 8 of their long shots and were just 4/25 overall as the half finished 61-12.
To their credit, York did not give up and put in a respectable performance in the second half, hitting 18 of 40 shots including 5 of 13 bombs. NYU regressed a bit as you would expect, hitting 'just' 11 of 26 from afar.
In the end, NYU sank 25 of 48 from long-range, while going 15 of 25 from inside the arc. In other words, nearly two of every three shot attempts was a trey and when you sink over 50% of them, you are going to win. The final was an exact double as the Violets were victorious 112-56. Brock Susko led all scorers with 20 points, including 6 of 9 threebies.
The game took about 65 minutes total as the refs let them play - really there's no reason to foul in such a blowout - and there are no media timeouts. I didn't have to wait for the train and was home an hour after the game had finished. In fact, this post was published two hours after that, making it the fastest game recap on the blog.
Notes
There were maybe 25 or 30 fans on hand, plus the cheerleaders getting ready for the women's game to follow (York lost to Rutgers Newark 83-43, thus avoiding the men's fate of being doubled up) but attendance was announced at 183. I guess they counted the players, staff, refs, and anybody who walked by on the street. If you are a masochist, you can watch the highlights on YouTube and see how few are there; you can even try to spot me sitting alone.
Amazingly, there is a D3 version of the KenPom rankings. After this game, NYU is 5th while York is 394th of the 410 schools. Surprisingly, the Cardinals are not the worst CUNYAC team as Medgar Evers is 408th.
Best,
Sean
No comments:
Post a Comment