March 3, 2009
As it happens, tonight’s game in Madison Square Garden (Mecca) between our Hoyas and the St. John’s Redmen (or Red Storm if you must) falls precisely one short week before both teams commence play in the Greatest Conference Show on Earth - - the Big East Tournament!! This year, it won’t exactly be the St. John’s “Wonder Five” of the late-1920s against the 1983-84 National Champion Hoyas for a place in the pantheon of all-time college basketball teams. Instead, tonight’s game features two teams ranked Nos. 12 (Georgetown) and 13 (St. John’s) in the Conference with both teams consigned to the first of two play-in round games next Tuesday at the Garden. Indeed, if the season were to end today, tonight’s game would be a preview of a repeat matchup next Tuesday afternoon between the Hoyas and the Redmen. For the Hoyas, who come into the game off a fine defense-led win against the then-No. 10 ranked Villanova Wildcats last Saturday at the Wachovia Center, the game represents a chance to build a small late-season winning streak that could, if it continues through the Big East Tournament, hopefully propel them, under the most positive of circumstances, to a place in the Big Dance! But let’s not kid ourselves, this isn’t exactly where we thought we would be at this point in the season!
Tonight’s game, and next week’s tournament, will be played in Madison Square Garden, or rather the fourth iteration of the Garden, which opened originally in 1879 on the northeast corner of Madison Square on the site of an old railroad depot. The prime mover for the original Garden was William Vanderbilt, son of the Commodore, who desired to bring the greatest shows on earth - - the National Horse Show and the legendary boxer John L. Sullivan - - to the viewing public. See Durso, J., Madison Square Garden: 100 Years of History, p. 23 (1979).
The second Madison Square Garden, the brainchild of Stanford White, the pre-eminent architect of his day, opened in 1890 on the site of the demolished, original Garden. The structure was a lavish, Moorish-styled castle with a colonnade, tower, roof gardens and a theatre. The project was bankrolled by financier John Pierpont Morgan and featured a 13-foot high, weather-vane, statute of the goddess Diana, fashioned by sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens. The new “castle” Garden became the center of society life in New York. At the same time, the new Garden also hosted boxing matches, horse shows, and entertainment extravaganza featuring foreign wrestlers, people on roller skates and bicycles and other physical-culture performers, and political conventions. Id. at 71-82. Indeed, it was on the stage of the second Garden during the 1896 Democratic Convention that populist William Jennings Bryan delivered his famous “cross of gold” speech.
In 1925, Madison Square Garden moved uptown to Eighth Avenue between 49th and 50th Streets featuring six-day bicycle races, boxing matches, and early NHL hockey games. Indeed, it was at MSG III where the 1943 Hoyas, coached by Elmer Ripley and led by Danny Kraus and John Mahnken, defeated the George Mikan-led DePaul Blue Demons by the score of 53-49 in the NCAA Semifinals before losing to Wyoming Cowboys, featuring Curt Gowdy, by the score of 46-34 in the NCAA Finals. This is the Garden that I recall from my childhood - - where I saw with my father during the Fifties and early Sixties, the Greatest Show on Earth, Ringling Brothers, Barnum and Bailey Circus, the Rodeo, “Professional” wrestling and, of course, college basketball. Specifically, I recall watching or listening to NBA Knick games, featuring Richie Guerin and Carl Braun, and collegiate basketball doubleheaders. In those days, St. Johns was coached by the legendary Joe Lapchick, who preceded Louie Carneseca on the Redmen’s bench. Lapchick led St. Johns to four NIT titles during an era when the NIT was the premier college basketball tournament. MSG III was also the location for Marilyn Monroes’ rendition of “Happy Birthday, Mister President1” for a 40-year old President John F. Kennedy!
The current version of the Garden (Garden IV), located on the air rights above Penn Station between Seventh and Eighth Avenues and 34th and 33rd Street, was conceived in 1960, begun in 1964, and opened in late 1967. Interestingly for Hoya fans, Georgetown played in and won the first collegiate basketball game at Garden IV, on February 15, 1968, as the Coach Jack Magee-led Hoyas downed the Jaspers of Manhattan by the score of 78-77. While I was a student at Georgetown, the 1969-70 Hoyas played and narrowly lost by an 83-82 score in the NIT at Garden IV against “Pistol Pete” Maravich and the LSU Tigers. In March 1983, MSG IV hosted its first Big East Tournament, and the Tournament has been played there every year since.
I have been fortunate to have attended all but one of Big East Tournaments since 1983 and have seen some of the greatest moments in Hoya basketball history. I look forward to next week’s Tournament, although I recognize that this year’s Hoyas face nigh-on insuperable odds to win the Tournament given the strength and depth of this year’s tournament and the necessity to win five games in a row over five days against increasingly more difficult opponents. But that is next week. For tonight, I’ll watch our Hoyas hook up in the prequel to the Show against St. John’s, think about Patrick and Chris Mullin, the Sweater Game, Big John and Looie, Reggie, Smittie, Zo, Dikembe, AI, Sweets, and Jeff, and others who made such wonderful Hoya memories for me at Madison Square Garden, the Mecca of College Basketball!
Tonight’s game will be telecast beginning at 7:30 p.m. on MASN and broadcast on ESPN 980 in Washington with Rich Chvotkin providing the play-by-play for the radio listeners.
WE ARE GEORGETOWN!!
Respectfully submitted,
Michael E. Karam, F ’72, L ’76, L ‘82
Proud Member of Generation Laughna
