Xavier University is a small Jesuit college on the north side of Cincinnati that has a fairly extensive basketball history. A poster on the Gopher Hole suggested that the accolades that get heaped on Gonzaga should go XU’s way. They’ve got a couple of NIT titles, as well as a very new arena/dining hall, the Cintas Center. We got over to campus a little bit early, and he was able to show me around the relatively small campus. Before the game, we stop at the student union for a blue beer. It’s just Bud Light with a bit of food coloring in the tap, but it’s certainly interesting.
Then it’s over to the Cintas Center. The seating at Cintas is an interesting configuration. The lower bowl goes all the way around the court, but the upper deck ends at the baselines on the north end, and a large ballroom occupies the space the “upper” deck should be. The student section is in the lower bowl below the ballroom, and the area is designated by benches, instead of the chairbacks around the rest of the arena. The XU student section is a lot like the hockey student section at Mariucci Arena: unorganized, unoriginal, and full of drunk people too busy to care about the game. Too busy, except for one minute detail: what my friend David refers to as the Wheel of Death. This is essentially a large, flat pinwheel with a spiral painted on it. When the opponent is shooting free throws, the general idea is that the wheel is stood up and spun in line with the shooter’s eye and the backboard, distracting him and making him miss. This wasn’t working the time I was there.
What I liked about Cintas is that it didn’t try to be what it wasn’t. It didn’t try to overwhelm you with either numbers or blaring pyrotechnics. They knew (and let you know) that you were in the home of the Xavier Musketeers, but let it go at that. The crowd was smart, and knew when to get in with the ebb and flow of the game.
Tonight’s game was against LaSalle, and it was a game that the Muskies drew off to a hard-fought win. Another thing I liked about CIntas is the fact that they provide halftime stats to the crowd. At the end of the concourse, near the entrance to the ballroom, there is a printer that kicks out copies of the halftime stats page, available to anyone who asks.
