BURLINGTON, Vt. – One of the main reasons the Northeastern men’s basketball team couldn’t compete with their “A” game against the University of Vermont Saturday afternoon was what could be read on the chests of thousands of Catamount fans – “Patrick Power.”
The term has nothing to do with the fact that St. Patrick’s Day is right around the corner, but rather with the undying surge of energy produced by the fans in Vermont’s seemingly modest arena, Patrick Gymnasium.
“The noise in the gym [during the game] was deafening and it never stopped,” said Vermont head coach Tom Brennan. “The crowd never went quiet; after we would score they’d get louder, whenever we made a stop, they got louder. The environment was really magical and I’ll never forget it.”
The gym, which shall be further referred to as “The Shoebox from Hell,” as dubbed by an anonymous Boston sports writer after the game, looks similar to a high school field house upon first glance. It isn’t big. However, the arena manages to seat an impressive 3,228 fans (3,266 squeezed in Saturday), with an equal number of seats on each side of the court and no seating behind either basket. In comparison, Matthews Arena still dwarfs The Shoebox from Hell with a 6,000 fan capacity. However, the Catamounts’ cradle edges out the 2,500 figure Solomon Court maxes out at during typical Husky games, according to the America East Conference’s Web site.
With that amount of crazed Vermont fans rooting for the biggest thing they have going and what a UVM campus radio announcer called before the game “the toughest ticket in the state of Vermont this year” packed into the small arena, the passion was palpable.
“It seemed like everyone from Vermont was at the game,” said junior biochemistry major Hassan Harris, who woke up early to catch the 6:30 a.m. bus Northeastern ran to shuttle fans to the game.
The Catamounts had their screaming fans behind them from the moment they won the tip until the fans began to thank each individual member of the team leaving after this year. Cries of “Thank you, Brennan” in respect to the coach’s 19 years of service were initiated by fans during a pair of Husky Aaron Davis free throws with 5:44 remaining. The chanting distracted Davis as he missed both attempts, and the continued thank you’s for the seniors on the team kept coming, helping to prevent Northeastern from making any semblance of a comeback.
The Huskies tried to face the adversity, but could never get back into the game after falling behind early on. The team rode the energy of the 500-plus Northeastern fans who made the long trip north, capping off a 13-8 run to get the game within 14 at halftime. But the power of The Shoebox from Hell was too much. When the team came back out for the second half, referees called five fouls in less than five minutes on the Huskies, feeding the fans’ frenzy. Conversely, zero whistles were blown on Vermont during the stretch, which vaulted the Catamounts to a 60-40 lead they wouldn’t look back from.
The Huskies won’t have much more luck in regards to location with their berth in the NIT tournament. The team is set to play the University of Memphis Tigers in Memphis, Tenn. tonight at 8 p.m.
