An Attendee Speechless at a Rhode Island Home Game?
Before I discuss this terrible sight on January 30, 2016 that was apparently an official basketball game, I need you to take a look at the opposition's mascot. The Saint Joseph's Hawks mascot is clearly and obviously, a hawk. Most mascots celebrate at the timely points of any sporting event. Per Dictionary.com, a mascot is defined as "an animal, person, or thing adopted by a group as its representative symbol and supposed to bring good luck". This game was so hard to watch due to the incompetency of the zebras wearing black and white so I turned my attention to watching the Saint Joseph's "mascot" for a good 10 to 15 minutes; a good enough duration of time to judge the actions of a mascot. For the entirety of the time I was looking at the Hawk, it repeatedly did one action, flapped its wings. When St. Joe's scored, the wings started flapping. When URI scored, its wings were flapping once more. When all the players and referees went to go use the bathroom during halftime, the St. Joe's hawk was still flapping its wings. When St. Joe's or URI did ANYTHING throughout this game, the hawk flapped its wings. If you think my judgments are not correct, I apologize. I was not aware that Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, best known for his time in the WWF/WWE and acting was now the mascot for Saint Joseph's University. Oh wait, he's not. The Saint Joseph's mascot is this dude:
So, I beg the question, is the St. Joe's mascot really a mascot? He or she seems to think so ...
In terms of the game, I thought I was going to the Ryan Center for a couple of hours to watch a great basketball game between 2 conference rivals, the Rhode Island Rams and the Saint Joseph's Hawks. I was sorely mistaken to possess this idea because I watched Isaiah Miles elbow Kuran Iverson in the throat, injuring him for this game as well as the next two. Then, Shavar Newkirk gave Jarvis Garrett a jaw injury by knocking some of his teeth out with an elbow of his own! Garrett would later wear "The Mask" as a result and be made famous by a bunch of media outlets such as Barstool Sports. Finally, for St. Joe's finale of the night, DeAndre Bembry (an NBA BUST) tried to throw hands with Four McGlynn. Luckily, Four McGlynn knows karate and the referees did the first correct thing all night, giving Bembry a technical foul for acting like a fool. What do you expect from a guy who dons an afro that was only popular in the 1970's?
All in all, Saint Joseph's escaped Kingston with a 72-67 victory by injuring a bunch of URI's players. If I wanted to watch wrestling instead of a basketball game, I could have just gone on YouTube and searched wrestling. Also, I cannot fail to mention that an extremely nice elderly woman from the Rhode Island faithful that I was sitting next to during the game told me that the referees needed to run to their cars and drive far away from Rhode Island after their terrible officiating. AGREED!
In case you missed it, this is what Dan Hurley thought about the game:
