Confirming an earlier report, the defending CIS men's basketball champion Carleton Ravens will face a Big East team in September, the St. John's Red Storm.
The game is Sept. 6, the Sunday of Labour Day weekend, but at the Ravens' Nest rather than Scotiabank Place, which is booked for an Aerosmith concert that weekend. Presumably, St. John's will also play the Ottawa Gee-Gees while in the capital.
It's a downer not to have games at SBP, but ultimately a big arena rock band is a better seller than basketball in Ottawa, even if Aerosmith is a couple decades past its best-before date. (If you were ever in doubt about Ottawa's musical tastes, last week KISS drew a crowd of 30,000 and Green Day got 8,000. KISS wasn't even good when they were the same age as the members of Green Day.)
The Red Storm were 16-18 last season, but are considered a "veteran team" (New York Daily News). In terms of hoops celebrity, one of their main forwards is 6-foot-7 Anthony Mason Jr., son of the former New York Knicks player. Mason is coming off an ankle injury and St. John's coach Norm Roberts noted the Canada trip will give him a chance to get back to game speed, so hopefully he would play extended minutes.
Carleton has a history with the Big East. They hosted Villanova, which went to the Final Four last season, at the start of 2007-08. They also took Rick Pitino's Louisville Cardinals to overtime in September 2006 and if memory serves, both they and the Gee-Gees have travelled south to play Cincinnati.
Carleton's release also confirmed a game on Aug. 18 vs. the Towson Tigers, as also previously noted. The Tigers will play a Ravens alumni team on Aug. 17, face the Ottawa Gee-Gees that night and face the Ravens the following evening.
On the women's side, coach Taffe Charles' Ravens will host two D-1 teams, Fairleigh Dickinson and Vermont, on Aug. 27-28, both 8 p.m. tip-offs at the Ravens' Nest. The latter game should be a homecoming for Vermont senior guard Courtnay Pilypaitis, a St. Peter alumna who led the Catamounts to the America East conference title and the NCAA Tournament last season. Vermont is also playing a game in Waterloo, since that's the hometown of another of their starters, May Kotsopoulos.
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4 comments:
There are rumours that the St. John's game will be the annual, frosh-only game and thus closed to the general public. Is there any confirmation of this or was it just wild speculation on a couple of basketball discussion boards?
@ Jason. From Carleton's release: "The cost of tickets for the games against Towson, on Tuesday, August 18th and St. John’s, on Sunday, September 6th are as follows,
Stadium Seating:
• Adult: $12.00
• Non CU Students: $10
• CU Students/Youth: $8.00
Bleacher Seating:
• Adult: $10.00
• Non CU Students: $8.00
• CU Students/Youth: $5.00"
If they're selling adult tix and ones to students at other schools, then the answer is no. I'll double-check with David Kent tomorrow.
I hope Carleton discontinues the practice of having a frosh only game, not open to the public.
I know several season ticket holders like myself who were not pleased with this idea.
While I suppose it looked good to have the place jammed with frosh...they get in for free...the fact is, only a small percentage of them would show up for any other Carleton home game.
Meanwhile, dedicated Raven fans were shut out...not fair.
I don't think any other school has frosh only games, as far as I know.
I think it is pretty clear the St. John's game is not for frosh only, otherwise that would have been mentioned.
I am sure other schools do have student only games.This is not unique to carleton.
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