Anyone Else Going to Olean?

[Taj79]

Fuok the politically-correct. I especially loved seeing the guy in the "St. Bonaventure Brown Indians" lettetman jacket on the boards in AC last year. I really never want to live long enough to see the "Fighting Sioux" abandon their nickname.

[Bobby Metzinger]

Yeah, drive up to Pekin, Illinois someday, y'all.

[bonwich]

Yeah, drive up to Pekin, Illinois someday, y'all.

That might put a ch!nk in your armor. You'd be a little safer just heading to Freeburg. (Edit: Our board censors out the work "ch!ink"? Are you fuoking kidding me, so to speak?)

[ACE]

Yeah, drive up to Pekin, Illinois someday, y'all.

That might put a ch!nk in your armor. You'd be a little safer just heading to Freeburg. (Edit: Our board censors out the work "ch!ink"? Are you fuoking kidding me, so to speak?)

It's a safeguard in case people get a little carried away during a debate about Yao Ming.

[bonwich]

Yao Ming.

[West Pine Jim]

Why not make it a travel trifecta ? Bonwich, I'll bet you know the way to Cobden. Peal, or peel your way on over.

[Pistol]

Fuok the politically-correct. I especially loved seeing the guy in the "St. Bonaventure Brown Indians" lettetman jacket on the boards in AC last year. I really never want to live long enough to see the "Fighting Sioux" abandon their nickname.

Didn't that already happen?

[Pistol]

" I'll be the one who isn't hanging on to the good ol' racist days." Care to explain ? Thanks

I think he was referring to your user name.

Fairly obvious.

Also, I cringe more at the term "politically correct" (which is completely moronic) than any embarrassingly dated mascot names.

[RiseAndGrind]

I hope you don't get gypped this weekend. Bring home a win!

[Pistol]

Thanks!

So is there no one else going besides me and the bigshot boosters?

I'm shocked.

[bonwich]

I hope you don't get gypped this weekend. Bring home a win!

More likely it's the Brown Welders who will get "gypped."

[RiseAndGrind]

I'd go with you Pistol, but I'm going to MB73 heaven.

MB, you going to Cameron this weekend!?

[Pistol]

Nice. Have fun. I went to the SLU game there a couple seasons ago. game, obviously, but worth going for the experience.

[Taj79]

@Pistol ---- answer something for me on Cameron. I know the Crazies do what they do, its always on TV. What do the other folks in attendance do? You know,the folks sitting with Mickey Krzyzewski. The ones in the upper decks as well.

[sonoma bob]

I'll tell you what the Duke fans did at the Oakland Colesium when Stanford beat them. They sat quietly with their mouths hanging open in disbelief. This was several years ago.

[MB73]

I'd go with you Pistol, but I'm going to MB73 heaven.

MB, you going to Cameron this weekend!?

HA, no, I am not, but Cameron is awesome, the atmosphere, the shrines to all of their NCAA Championships, jerseys, trophies, and pictures of All American players are a treat (and Biondi would not put up a small statue of Easy Ed donated by alumni). And the Cameron Crazies are primo, the original best student following and still the best demonstarted practice; many people hate 'em. Jealous.

*I am not a Duke fan at all, if we played them in the NCAA's I would hope we wipe the floor with them. I just oppose those posters who HATE Duke for no reason other than that Duke is clearly the most successful, best coached, clean, strong academic based, admirable program in the NCAA for the last 25 yrs. Jealous, small minded people hate Duke. It is just that simple. I, myself, wish SLU had done exactly as Duke has done the last 25 yrs. Who would you prefer? Kentucky? U of Missouri? I say, Duke.

(*annual statement)

[willie]

I was at the Bills game there 2years ago. The place was amazing,not for the building but for the energy. When coach K walked into the court you would have thought Jesus came back from dead. I'm going to the Butler game and anxious to compare Hinkle to Cameron.

[sonoma bob]

I've never been to either place. But H is much bigger than C, doesn't mean it's better though.

Size H>C.

[Pistol]

Taj, my seats at Duke were in the top row, obscured by a ceiling beam, literally the worst in the house. The people around us were locals, not Duke grads. Nice, and low-key. The student section was not filled. We actually had the option to buy seats there; they open up a week ahead if they're not claimed. We made the mistake of passing because we didn't want confrontation. Their tenacity is overrated. But that may have been the score.

[tdog]

One of the best things about today's win is that it may be our last trip ever to Olean. If so, how nice to leave with a victory!

[billikenfan05]

I HATE St. Bonaventure but those hicks know how to party.

[dlarry]

<blockquote class='ipsBlockquote'data-author="billikenfan05" data-cid="338169" data-time="1359244394"><p>

I HATE St. Bonaventure but those hicks know how to party. </p></blockquote>

Id party pretty hard too if SLU had as fat of cheerleadera as SBU does.

[gister]

Taj, my seats at Duke were in the top row, obscured by a ceiling beam, literally the worst in the house. The people around us were locals, not Duke grads. Nice, and low-key. The student section was not filled. We actually had the option to buy seats there; they open up a week ahead if they're not claimed. We made the mistake of passing because we didn't want confrontation. Their tenacity is overrated. But that may have been the score.

The last post from Pistol was at 2:45. Anyone heard from him since?

I just saw he posted in another thread. Nevermind.

[Pistol]

I'm back from my one-man, one-day trip to St. Bonaventure. The school and town(s) have been a major curiosity for me since we joined the A10 so I'm glad I finally went. Some observations:

-7 hours each way from Cincinnati. Longer on the way up because I stopped at Southern Tier Brewing Co. in Lakewood for lunch about an hour before hitting campus. Highways were clear for the most part except a 20-mile stretch in far NE Ohio. Some nasty-looking wrecks on the side of the highway, though.

-When you drive to campus from the west, you get off I-86 and pass St. Bonaventure Catholic Parish, a convent for Franciscan Sisters, and St. Bonaventure Cemetery (which has a huge Stations of the Cross display on a hill) before hitting campus. It's all very Catholic.

-St. Bonaventure's campus isn't actually in Olean proper. It's sandwiched between Olean and Allegany, and has its own zip code as St. Bonaventure, NY. I think it includes the campus and a bit of surrounding land. The campus faces the main drag that goes through all three, State Street/NY 417, on one side and is surrounded on the other sides by wooded hills and the Allegheny River. Everything was covered in about a foot of snow. The buildings are clustered in the middle, and it feels small. In keeping with the theme I saw while driving in, there seemed to be a lot of religious buildings, statues, and so forth. It feels a lot more religious than SLU's campus in that way. There are a few old brick & stone buildings and the rest is mid-century brick, very dull-looking. There are a few newer buildings, though, that look like they were done less than 10 years ago. It feels like a school that was founded for a small religious order and then expanded decades later in a relatively short period, judging by the buildings and layout.

-Allegany seems to be the nicer, quainter, probably wealthier town and Olean is larger and more working- and middle-class, from what I could tell. I had some time to drive around both before walking around campus. Overall, a really nice area and the towns weren't bad at all. My wife and I drove down I-86 through here back in September and this area of the country is really scenic in the fall. There are some depressing towns up there, but Allegany and Olean aren't.

-The Reilly Center is ugly from the outside and the hallways and concourses are small and dated. But I really liked the inside of the gym itself. All ductwork was above the rafters, per billikens.com big-time arena construction requirements. Someone said it seated 4,400 but Wikipedia says 5,480. Either way, it's not huge and gets very, very loud. The fans are great, for the most part. The student section makes an L around the baseline and half of the floor across from the visitor bench, and the ones in front are right on the floor. The guys at the end in the front were real jackasses, but I give the students a lot of credit for coming out in big numbers and being loud. I got heckled a lot from the baseline guys and most of it was high school-level stuff. Nothing creative or funny. They were all over Jordair for his hair for some reason. 5 students had Indian feather headdresses on. The students gave Kwamain the "no means no" chant twice. The rest of the fans were fine; didn't see too many crazy Hoosiers like at some of the Valley gyms, save for one woman behind me who kept yelling whenever I stood. She had a face that said "probably about 40, but looks more like 55 because of some poor life choices." She prompted my meth comment yesterday; the rest of the fans were fine and I'll retract that comment for future use - the next SIUC game.

-I had a ticket in section 4, row B, not far behind the SLU bench. When the boosters saw me, they told me to go down and sit in a few extra seats they had in the row behind the SLU bench. They were all super nice, super cool people. Very easy to talk to and they couldn't believe I drove there. Talked to a few AD people, but just missed May. They had set the over-under on other SLU fans at 3. We thought it was the under until a young couple, 2010 grads, came over and sat with us for the second half. They drove down from Buffalo, where they're in grad school. Super cool people.

-The Buffalo Sabres' PA guy did the national anthem. Crowd went nuts for him. He did a great job. Lots of Sabres jerseys in the crowd and Bills and Sabres stickers on cars.

-No band! And the cheerleaders, to borrow a term from The Lonely Island, are thicker than Delta Burke sippin' on a Guinness. The one I thought you guys would love most is second from the right in my photo in the album linked below. She was about 4-5, 200, but quick as a flash. Had the word "JIMBO" tattooed on her ankle.

-Fans started leaving with about 3 minutes left. SBU was in no way out of it but this was right after our flurry of clutch steals. I couldn't believe it. I will grant them, though, that it does take a solid 10-15 minutes to get out of campus after a game because the arena is in the back and there are only 2 ways out - 1 if you don't have a season parking pass.

I can't figure out how to copy and paste photos over to here; my iPhone apparently turns every photo into a massive file, so my first paste attempt resulted in a picture too big to fit in the screen. Anyone who knows how I can fix this, let me know. Until then, I made a Google Photo album and made it public: St. Bonaventure 2013

[Pistol]

Oh yeah, and this was their Homecoming game. It was pretty full, but not quite 100%. A couple empty patches in the top corners. You'll also notice in a couple of the pictures that there are 2 suites at one end of the gym that were added in recent years. Apparently there is a private banquet space back there for boosters, too.