Packed Palestra + Frantic Fans= Awesome Atmosphere

Tonight was the biggest basketball game of the year: the No. 1 North Carolina Tar Heels @ the Palestra on ESPN2. And as with all of the biggest Quaker sporting events, the Penn band was there. While the result of the game was disappointing, that doesn't mean the game wasn't fun. In fact, for the first half of the game, the sold out Palestra was absolutely hopping (or rocking, or whatever sweet gerund you want to use).

(Even halftime was sweet. While Joe went out for his usual Newport break, a two-man "Extreme Team" made some sweet acrobatic dunks using trampolines, including one where the Quaker held two balls out and each of the guys ran, jumped, grabbed the ball in midair and dunked it while doing flips.)

This game was one of those sweet instances when I'm glad the band is involved. Yet again, as with many of the not-as-important games, the band was leading the Palestra in cheers. The most important of these cheers were in the second half. Unfortunately at this time the game got out of hand (we were outscored 57-34), but more unfortunately the Red and Blue crew severely cut back on their cheering. To be fair though, I was impressed that nearly the entire Palestra stayed for the duration.

On an aside, I wasn't too impressed by the Carolina fans. For one they didn't send any band although this isn't that shocking since no ACC bands travel for conference road games by rule. Yet at the same time there were still tons of Carolina fans, perhaps as many as 45% of the Palestra. Clearly UNC is one of the most popular (read bandwagon) teams in America. And considering the Tar Heels never come to the Philly region, it makes sense why a lot of UNC fans would come. Yet, despite the high attendance, the only chants they tried to start were some feeble attempts at "Let's go tar heels" and their go-to cheer where one group of fans yells Tar! and the other responds with Heels! This is what it's supposed to sound like. (Well at least that's with a nickname, and not the spelling of the state your team's from.)

But the highlight of the night came from a non-bando. Ed Rendell, the current governor of Pennsylvania and an avid Penn Hoops fan (class of '65) was in attendance as he is for many Penn games. At one point the head ref reversed a call a fellow official made (a tied up ball) and instead called a foul on Penn. (Worst referee ever; he might not have called a single foul on UNC the whole night.) All Penn fans booed and others did even worse things. And good ol' Gov Ed was one of them. Turning nearly red in the face he stood up and proceeded to yell at the top of his lungs at the ref. If only he had a snowball.