Big Lead Sports Bar

1/08/2007

Reader Submission: A Pittsburgh XPlosion XPerience

Just into the Mondesi Mailbag comes this in-person account of a Pittsburgh XPlosion CBA basketball game, courtesy of Dennis at Pittblather.com:

"A buddy of mine came into town last weekend and wanted to see the Petersen Events Center since he has not yet been in it. We didn't have tickets to the Pitt-USF game on Sunday but when we found that the Xplosion would be there Saturday night we used it as our ticket to show him the building.

I felt bad for him that he's never been able to experience the place during a "real game" when Pitt plays a Big East team. The attendance on Saturday night was probably somewhere around 200 (300 tops) and most of that 200 was composed of the 50 or so family members that came along with the 10 year old girl who sand the national anthem. By the way, she had a hell of a voice but she managed to drag it out for about 5 minutes.

We sat in the courtside seats (general admission tickets + us getting there somewhat early = damn good seats) and it was pretty neat to be able to walk right onto the court that a top 10 team such as Pitt plays on. The amazing seats also made the game a little easier to get in to.

West Virginia's finest, one Mr. Kevin Pittsnogle, is the Xplosion's main attraction. It was easy to tell he has trouble getting pumped for these game; when the team was jumping around right before tipoff he just stood there on the outside of the circle. I guess in the times he'd been here the last few years the place had a little better of an atmosphere. Kevin is just as odd and goofy looking as you see him on TV.

The actual game was sloppy but there were a few cool dunks. I actually figured this would be a little more like a Harlem Globetrotters game but it was a real basketball game. In this particular case, they held the lead for most of the game (which I don't think happens often) before giving up a game tying three pointer with about 2 seconds left and then proceeded to lose badly in overtime. Not very hard to see why they're 1-14.



Overall, I'd do it again just to sit that close to the court at the Pete (or Mellon Arena) for the $5 they charged me. Maybe someday they'll sign a former Pitt player and so I won't feel forced to go.
Pictures can be found here (sorry about the quality of some of them, I'm not much of a photographer and the camera I had wasn't great)"

http://picasaweb.google.com/d.oneil09/XplosionGame


Don't forget to email your interesting links and thoughts to mondesishouse@gmail.com. Of all the submissions I receive, I'll send a random winner a cool prize each Monday.

1 comment:

hyzdufan said...

I like the different advertisers crappy graphics being flashed on the LED boards. How do you sell an advertising account to any of these people?

PX: "We're selling prime advertising space in the Petersen Events Center!"

MRB: "Wow, that would really get the word out about Moon Rise Beads!"

PX: "Yes! Dozens, if not baker's dozens of people will be familiar with YOUR product!"