Look, I don’t like having to talk about BC athletics as much as I do on here. This blog serves a slightly wider audience than just BC alum and I prefer my content to be more generally applicable.

Having said that…

They give me a lot of easy material.

The latest in the long string of BC debacles unfolded last night when I made the 45-minute trek on the T to the fabled Hills of Chestnut to witness a once in a lifetime sporting event: Boston College basketball (5-4) vs. UNH (2-5).

Normally I wouldn’t write about such a terrible waste of everyone’s time, (the players’ time included), but this game was special. Because we were sitting courtside.

COURTSIDE CONFIDENTIAL: BC vs UNH

Here’s how this evening came to be: My roommate Slick’s girlfriend Lauren went to a BC hoops game with a huge squad last year. And since she’s the only person ever to bring other people to a Boston College basketball game instead of crushing popcorn shamefully by herself in the upper deck, BC deemed her to be essentially a booster.

As a result, she was entitled to certain perks, like a pregame pizza party/raffle in the President’s Box and tickets to a basketball game of her choosing (shitty, non-conference games only). Now here’s the absurd part:

She’s a Notre Dame grad. The game she went to last year that earned her these perks was against Notre Dame. So BC basketball is so shitty that they are shelling out special offers to alumni of our biggest rival. We are truly pathetic.

But I stopped being embarrassed by BC years ago, so I was happy to tag along for the journey. My brother Ryan, Slick, Lauren, and I arrived at Conte Forum and meandered through the massive crowd of 6 seemingly unattended kids, half of whom were wearing their boy scout uniforms for some reason, to find the raucous party being held in our honor.

We hoped that BC would shell out the big bucks for high-level boosters like ourselves and grace us with pizza from Pino’s, arguably the best slice in the city of Boston and a staple of BC students.

We also joked that, knowing BC, they would probably give us plain cheese pizza from the dining hall.

Realizing our importance, the disinterested sophomores who BC employs at below minimum wage quickly escorted us up to the President’s Box, the most exclusive locale on Boston College’s campus. We entered to an absolute bacchanal, the likes of which would make the Ancient Romans blush.

Stood before us were three (3) middle-aged guys who may or may not have gone to BC and yet another disinterested sophomore. On the table they had a magical spread of 15 or so plain cheese pizzas from the dining hall and several small bottles of Dasani and that gross type of Coke that has the gold lettering. As a reminder, BC has an endowment of $3.7 Billion.

We entered the raffle, which consisted of putting our names in a small fishbowl that had 3 other scraps of paper in it, and Lauren won a bag of crap from a school she didn’t attend. A magical moment. As you can see, I wore my best sweats for the occasion.

Realizing it was nearly game time, and not wanting to miss a second of BC haphazardly throwing line drive jump shots off the backboard, we were ready to make an exit. Just then, the disinterested sophomore made our night a whole lot more interesting.

He handed us each a new ticket, saying, “We have these courtside seats if you want them. They’re free.” Now this is a school that treats its VIP’s right. He took special care to ensure that we all had seats in the same section because we definitely couldn’t just take any seat we wanted in a 95% empty gym.

We ventured down to courtside, quickly flashing our tickets to the 80-year-old woman who clearly couldn’t read what they said and walked directly past our assigned section to sit right on the wood.

Hopefully you can feel the electricity that was in the air in that packed arena.

Knowing that we wouldn’t care about the outcome of the game, Slick and I placed a $100 bet on the over, just to give ourselves a rooting interest. The pace was fast and frenetic, and the over looked all but assured. This will be important later.

Comfortable in our victory, we turned our attention away from the game and towards some of the in-stadium activities. The cheerleaders ran directly in front of us for the t-shirt toss. And in a show of female empowerment, one of them tossed a tee right to Lauren who was just feet away. How that girl could tell that 5’0” Lauren wears a men’s 2XL shirt, I’ll never know.

That shirt will fit her like Maggie Simpson’s onesie:

Feeling a bit peckish, I opted to sample some of the gourmet cuisine that the Conte Forum has to offer. Remembering my childhood fondness for BC hotdogs, I simply had to indulge in a literal taste of nostalgia. And BC didn’t dissapoint:

The anemic, two-toned dog. The dry, clearly expired and wrinkled bun that is somehow partially inverted. The aluminum wrapping to give the impression that it’s still hot. Just a truly perfect hot dog eating experience. Btw it literally came like that. I didn’t do anything to that bun — that’s how it was handed to me. I did NOT feel well when I woke up this morning.

As my stomach attempted to digest the foreign substance it was just presented with, I joked that BC would probably be one of those schools that still does the dumb flossing dance challenge presented by a local dental compa..oh wait they do.

If only someone could have predicted last week that this would still be a thing.

Anyways, the highlight of the night had to be the guy next to me. He was just some random dude, at the game solo, sitting straight on center court. And he ran shit. This was far from his first rodeo. This was a guy who was in such constant communication with the refs that I legitimately thought he was their boss. But nope, he was just some BC fan who likes to talk shit to college refs in inconsequential games. By far the best exchange came late in the second half with the score even:

Random Guy: Hey ref, you gotta watch #23. That was easily a 3-second violation.

Ref: No, we don’t call that.

Random Guy: Why, cause you can’t count that high?

(Internal George dialogue): Holy shit, get bodied stripes you fucking loser.

Ref: No, cause you’re an idiot

(Internal George dialogue): Awful comeback bro.

Random Guy: He was in the paint for 8 seconds.

Ref: I know you can’t afford those seats

(Internal George dialogue): I mean…he’s currently sitting in the seats. Also, can’t afford them? This isn’t the Garden. We literally got these seats for free. Anyone could afford them. And that was definitely a 3-second violation.

The zebra got wrecked in that back and forth. Awful night for the officials. Anyways, the game is winding down and I quickly realized that BC was up 3 with just seconds to go (as 14-point favorites). I hadn’t been paying attention because:

1. We suck

2. I don’t care

3. I thought the over bet I had placed was pretty much guaranteed after a high-scoring first half

But a 5-minute scoreless stretch, the fact that both teams were shooting under 60% from the free throw line, and my general luck as a gambler meant that with just 8 seconds left, we were 3 points away from the over. And with UNH likely to heave and miss a desperation shot down 3 points, we were going to narrowly lose our bet as time expired. But then a miracle happened.

Literally every team in the country knows that you immediately foul the other team when you’re up 3 points with just seconds left. Why? Because it forces them to shoot 2 free throws instead of attempting a game-tying three.

But BC isn’t every team. They played their usual terrible style of defense that is somehow neither man nor zone and allowed #21 on UNH to have a perfect, wide-open look, directly in front of our seats.

Bang. A 3-pointer. To tie the game. And clinch the over for Slick and I. Maybe the only time I’ve ever been on the winning side of a bet like that. If you look carefully at the bottom of the screen, you can see me react in my tie-dye hoodie. My hands shoot up to my head in stunned disbelief. Not that BC just blew a game. I’ll never be stunned by that. But that somehow, against all odds, I won a bet. I discretely shook hands with Slick after the camera had cut away as we rejoiced in BC’s incompetence for once. Needless to say, we were stunned for a few minutes.

What a moment. What a game. What a night.

PS. BC blew another lead in OT and lost to UNH. First time in 23 matchups that we’ve lost. 0-2 on the year to the America East Conference. Have lost to UNH, Maine, and Tarleton State and haven’t even started conference play yet. Love this team. Love this school. Bring on Villanova.