Memories from my freshman year - #3 - Playing Majerus and St. Louis
Our third game of the year was against the Billikens of St. Louis University, a team coached by the infamous Rick Majerus. We arrived in St. Louis by plane early in the evening on the night before the game. We got situated at the hotel and hopped back on to our charter bus and went to grab some dinner before calling it a night. There was a Hard Rock Cafe not too far from the hotel that was in "the historic Union Station area" according to their website. It was Tony Anderson's (one of our point guards) birthday and in order to receive his birthday dessert he had to stand on his seat and sing and act out "I'm a little teapot". It was our first real road trip and it was a lot of fun. The next day we had breakfast at the hotel and then went to the arena for our shoot around. For a mid major program, SLU plays in a great arena. They play in the same arena as the St. Louis NHL team, the Blues, play in. I guess the only drawback to this setup would be that you aren't able to practice on the same court you play on which is always a good thing. (PHOTO) We played them pretty well and were only down by 3 or 4 at the half if I remember correctly. One of their best offensive players (Tommie Liddell III) was suspended or benched for the first half. It could have had something to do with his dad posting on their message board about how Majerus can't coach.He entered the game a few minutes into the second half and the crowd went wild and their team really fed off of the energy. We ended up losing by 14 but it was a much closer game than the score indicates. You can imagine we were pretty embarrassed when later in the year they ended up scoring only 20 points as a team in a game. I was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and most of my family still live in that area (most meaning 6 out of my 8 relatives). My cousin Ian and my aunt drove down from Milwaukee for the game and my dad and sister Lauren drove up from Atlanta for the game. Our shooting guard/point guard is from Peoria, Illinois and his family also came down for the game. We went out to find our families after we got dressed and we got our first autograph requests of our careers. It was pretty funny since it was from little kids that probably thought we played for SLU. I went back to the hotel, showered, and went downtown to a pizza place and got to spend some quality time with my family members that were in town. Its always great to have someone you know in town on the road. (PHOTO) (PHOTO) For pictures go to my official blog by clicking the link
