This was the third time in four years we have played an early morning game on ESPN to tip off the college basketball season. This year, 50 brave souls woke up at 4am to make the bus trip to Lawrencville. Upon arriving we were greated by a shower of boo’s from Drunken Rider students who were sitting across the way from us in what has been dubbed “The Broncs’ Zoo”. We will give them credit, they did pack an entire side of the 1,650 person arena. It only took free tshirts, giveaways, and a national television spot outside to get them there.
The whitty banter started almost immediately between the Gold clad shirts in a see of white. The “Zoo Crew” did a pathetic job of wrangling in the animals. The DAC Pack and other Drexel alum took up almost an entire quarter of the tiny gym (rarely do we get to make fun of the size of a gym, it was a weird change). One thing we noted was the pathetic excuse of a national anthem the Rider students had put together. Does anyone think a beatboxed freestyled version of our country’s anthem is a good idea? Apparently Rider thought it would be on national tv. The DAC Pack immediatiely countered the disrespect with chants of “U-S-A, U-S-A”! It should also be noted the Rider band consisted of a Bass drum, three trumpets, one snare, a cowbell, one trombone, and an accoustic guitar (that wasn’t even plugged in).
The game got off to a slow start, Drexel trailed at one point and the petting zoo showing its ignorance towards actually attending a college game started with a scoreboard chant. Yes, a scoreboard chant in the first five minutes down by five whole points. While the 100 something of us in the stands were drowned out by the see of white noise and disorganized chants, we still managed to make our presence known. ESPN commented towards the end on our our “where R U going?” chants as their fans funneled out with 7:52 left on the game clock. I guess they were smart in the end, because we ended up winning
The end of the game led to the second annual police escort of the DAC Pack out of the visiting team’s arena. We were proud of the DAC Pack presence at this game, and we want to keep it up! The next roadtrip will be to cross city Rival, St. Joes.
