This Week in Wrenball: In Which the Basketball Gods Smote the Weather Gods

We follow sports for lots of reasons. We do it for a sense of community, for tribal affiliation (pun only intended after the fact). We do it for camaraderie, for bonding with friends across time and distance. And we do it on the off chance that we might get to witness the moment, the holy shit cathartic yawping joy that happens when preparation meets opportunity meets sublime skill and the best of luck.

We just can't quit you, Wawa.

Yesterday in Philadelphia, the Teej and I were blessed by the fates, and got to see a pair of the best basketball games we could've imagined, capped by one of the top five individual performances either of us have ever seen from a William & Mary player. We also spent two hours driving through a snowstorm, visited the same rural Maryland Wawa twice, raged impotently at Philly's snow removal efforts (mostly, the lack thereof), solved a young man's life problems, connected with old friends in the CAA hoops community and met some new ones, drank beer with an Irishman, and blew up on Twitter. To borrow from the noted bard Ice Cube, it was a good day.

A view from the Uecker seats at La Salle.

Despite encountering an unexpected (mostly because we hadn't bothered to check the weather forecast) snowstorm, we arrived at La Salle's Tom Gola Arena ten minutes before the noon tip between the Explorers and VCU. In another nod to our lack of preparation, we nearly missed out on getting seats to the sold out contest, lucking into a pair that VCU had returned. Bob Uecker would've called our seats bad, but in the 3,400-seat old school field house, no seats were truly awful.

At various points in the game, each team appeared ready to run their opponent off the floor. VCU led by 11 midway through the first half, but a combination of poor free throw shooting and indifferent halfcourt offense (note to those filling out an NCAA Tournament bracket - if the Rams face a team that protects the basketball and can defend a bit in the halfcourt, they might be in trouble, though FOGTB @VCULitos disagrees) allowed La Salle to creep back to within four at the half.

The roles were reversed in the second frame, as the Explorers took a 10-point lead with 5:15 to play to the raucous delight of the Gola faithful. But Treveon Graham (34 points, 12 boards) and Juvonte Reddic (27 and 15) took over for VCU, scoring all of their team's final 14 points in regulation (and all seven of VCU's points in the first overtime) to keep the Rams alive.

I'm pretty sure La Salle's mascot is modeled after Father Guido Sarducci.

With 2:39 to go in the second bonus stanza and the score tied at 82, VCU sharpshooter Rob Brandenberg (who'd been quiet for most of the game) finally gave Graham and Reddic a rest, draining a huge triple. He followed it up with another longball after a La Salle turnover, giving the Rams a six-point lead they'd never relinquish, and sending the visiting fans (of whom there were a considerable number) home with a thrill. For us, the buzz of the game was nearly equaled by the excitement of watching Briante Weber play basketball. He's like a turbocharged octopus on defense - as I said to my traveling companion, if you have the ball and you don't know where Weber is, you're going to lose it. He finished with 5 steals.

Famished, the Teej and I scored a pair of dry, semi-stale Philly 'soft' pretzels on the way out of the gym and stepped out into a heavy snow and a slushy mess. On our way back to the car, we passed ESPN's John Saunders (who'd called the game with Dan Dakich on ESPN2) standing by himself on the sidewalk with a bag in each hand, looking for all the world like he'd been forgotten by his ride. A combination of gullets crammed with pretzel and surprise conspired to rob us of our opportunity to kibitz with Saunders. But I'm sure our repartee would've been witty.

Worst. Pretzel. Ever.

La Salle's campus is about eight minutes away from Drexel's. On a normal day. Yesterday was not a normal day. After saying a few Hail Marys and a couple of curse words, we managed to creep up the icy, snowy hills that lead from La Salle back to the highway. At which point we cruised at a crisp 25 miles per hour. For a putatively Northern city, Philly's snow removal brigades sure did a great Washington, DC impression.

"Survive and advance", said TJ, and we did, arriving at the John A. Daskalakis Athletic Center on Drexel's urban campus eight minutes before the W&M/Drexel tip. The DAC, as its known, seats 2,500, many of whom are within five feet of the playing surface. It's got a really cool, almost menacing vibe. As W&M coach Tony Shaver said after the game, it's a very tough place for road teams to play. We scored much better seats for the second game of our twinbill, winding up four rows behind the W&M bench - close enough to see the bristles of Shaver's mustache. (And, as it turns out, catch his demeanor in the late-game huddle that preceded the stunning end.)

We splurged for seats with backs to them at the DAC. Was money very well spent.

BEASTHOVEN

Drexel's Chris Fouch and the Tribe's Marcus Thornton did their best 'Nique/Bird impression in the first half, as Fouch dropped 19 on W&M while Thornton tallied 13. The Dragons closed the half on an 11-4 run that seemed for all the world a harbinger of their inexorable push to victory. As Shaver noted in the postgame presser, W&M went to the locker room a beaten team, the atmosphere that of a 'morgue'.

But W&M young assistant coaches did a terrific job of pumping up a team that had been on the road for five days and got "their fannies kicked" (per Shaver) at Hofstra on Wednesday. Lesser W&M squads (read: most previous W&M squads) would've packed it in and been run out of the gym. The partisan DAC crowd certainly expected that outcome.

When Kyle Gaillard and Thornton sandwiched three-pointers around a trio of Tim Rusthoven (15 points, 5 boards, 4 assists) buckets, though, the Tribe had run off the first 10 points of the second half to take the lead, and the game was on.

Drexel fought back to take a seven-point lead on a Freddie Wilson jumper at the 9:45 mark. The offensively-challenged Wilson's made shot (TJ and I took to exhorting him to shoot every time he touched the ball) caused Shaver to raise his hands in the air in exasperation.

Perhaps the saddest display of fan chest painting I've ever seen.

Once again, however, given a chance to fold, the Tribe battled back. As I told TJ, this was as hard-nosed a performance as I've ever seen by a W&M team. Despite being overmatched physically (Drexel's big men are strong, and in the case of freshman Rodney Williams, incredibly bouncy.) and playing in a loud, tightly-packed gym, the Tribe gave as good as they got. W&M scored 11 straight to take a four-point lead with 5:07 to play. Rusthoven again keyed the run, scoring seven of the 11, and converting Thornton's pretty no-look dime to give W&M a 58-57 edge.

Thornton's pass made freshman Daniel Dixon smile as he headed back on defense, but the youngster gave his coach and W&M fans reasons of their own to feel good. Though he didn't do much on offense, Dixon was critical in slowing Fouch down in the second half. While the Drexel sixth-year senior finished with a career-high 31 points, he only made two of seven shots after Dixon got the defensive assignment on him.

This kid was absolutely my fan of the game. Just an amazing display of fashion.

One of the game's great little moments came during a timeout with 3:12 to play. Dixon had missed an open three-pointer, making him 0-4 on the evening. His disappointment was visible in the huddle, as he dwelled on his miss. Senior Brandon Britt (who scored 9 efficient points) rubbed Dixon's head and whispered encouragement. Not much to see in the box score there, but terrific leadership by Britt, and a sign of a team playing as one.

Frantz Massenat hit a vital three for Drexel to draw the Dragons within a pair with two minutes to play, and then Fouch scored on consecutive drives to put Drexel on top. The last of his 31 points came on a tough floater with Dixon all over him, giving the home team a 66-65 advantage with 8.1 seconds left.

Shaver called timeout, and addressed his team in the huddle. He got down to his knees, and damned if he wasn't smiling. Amidst the maelstrom, he radiated calm and while we couldn't hear him, it sure looked like he was telling the Tribe how much fun the whole thing was. TJ noticed it right away, saying, "Look at Shaver! He's smiling!" 

At that moment, I turned to TJ and said, "We've got Marcus". Meanwhile, he was tweeting, #InMarcusWeTrust. If we knew where the ball was going, it sure seemed to be news to Bruiser Flint. The Drexel coach only applied token pressure on the inbound pass, and didn't attempt in any way to deny Thornton the ball. The junior guard dribbled the ball upcourt against Major Canady, with the imposing Dartaye Ruffin (who makes Greg Oden look cherubic) lurking to deny a drive to the basket.

Allegedly, W&M had five players on the court, but there was nobody in the gym that expected four of them to see the ball. Thornton weaved his way into the frontcourt, drove hard towards the right, then froze Canady on a crossover before stepping back, elevating, and shooting.


You know what happened next, as do millions of Americans, thanks to yesterday's SportsCenter Top 10. The last three of Thornton's 26 points snapped through the twine, a few dozen W&M boosters went bonkers, the Tribe bench erupted, and 2,000 Drexel fans went dead silent.

Which was good, because it meant we could hear Flint's expletive-laden assault on the officials. The Drexel coach's demeanor contrasted sharply with Shaver's grace under pressure, and while Flint may have had a point (W&M was only called for five second half fouls, an undeniably favorable whistle for a road team.), he came off for all the world like a deranged lunatic.

I'll take our guy, thanks.

Thanks to a gracious recommendation by FOGTB and Drexel fan Dan Crain (@metsox1, and the proprietor of the well-written Dragons Speak blog), TJ and I made our way to The New Deck Tavern for postgame recovery drinks and the first real meal we'd had all day.

TJ had the presence of mind to record a Vine of the Thornton shot, which blew up all over social media in the hours after the game. He kept exclaiming with amazement as first a trickle, then a flood of people retweeted and passed the video around. Even a couple of national outlets got into the act. (We got to see which of them were willing to steal a video from a hard-working blogger without attribution, too. Not naming names, but let's just say one of them is a national sports outlet that starts with N and ends with BCSN.) We got back to DC around 10:00, fairly well convinced that we'd witnessed as good a day of basketball as we're likely to see anytime soon. At least until the CAA Tournament in Baltimore.

It was a terrific day of hoops. But the chance to hang out with my man TJ might've been even better.

Sports, my friends. They're awesome.

#gtbhoopsroadie was a rousing success. See you all in Baltimore for Part Deux.