I left work a little early today to hop on the Metro Plus…

And I rode the Metro Plus up to Listermann across the street from Xavier…

Here’s what was on tap at Listermann tonight…

There I met our friend Chris who happens to work for Xavier. He got us tickets for tonight’s Big East matchup between the Georgetown Hoyas and our Xavier Musketeers…

One of my earliest basketball memories is watching the Big East Conference in its heyday when Lou Carnesecca was coaching Chris Mullin at St. John’s, Rollie Massimino was coaching Ed Pinckney at Villanova, PJ Carlesimo was at Seton Hall, Jim Boeheim was well on his way at Syracuse and… John Thompson was coaching Patrick Ewing at Georgetown.

Fast forward to today and now Patrick Ewing is the head coach of the Georgetown Hoyas and he’s standing right down there on the court of Cintas Center…

By the way, ESPN made an outstanding 30-for-30 documentary called “Requiem For The Big East” about the meteoric rise of the Big East Conference. And how it became one of the most successful college sports leagues in America. Incredible documentary. If you love college basketball and get a chance, it is definitely worth watching.

Xavier trailed by seventeen at one point in the first half. But they went on a run to close the gap to being down just five at halftime…

And Xavier would go on to win the game 81-75!

One of the cool, relatively new features of Cintas Center is the popular Norwood Café, more commonly known as The Woods. Norwood Cafe used to be located at the corner of Dana and Cleneay. It was demolished in 2008 to make room for construction of University Station, including Xavier’s All for One Shop. Renovations to Cintas Center for the 2017/18 season saw the recreation of the cafe on the upper concourse. And they brought in the original 100-year-old cherryback bar that spanned the 35 feet of The Woods’ main gathering space along with a close representation of the tile floor and the original chandelier…

Pretty neat stuff. Here’s a cool video about the renovations. In front of the area are terraces where you can stand and watch the game with your beverage. And we love standing and watching sports. Also cool was the fact that back when Xavier used to have a football team, they were involved in the first doubleheader in college football…

Who knew?! It was a great time. Thanks again to Chris and Tayler for getting us tickets! Let’s GO X! 😀🏀❤️