The Luck or Curse of the Irish?

For about a year now, Scottie and I planned to attend the NCAA Men's Basketball Round 1 & 2 games in Providence, but this past Monday, we found out that Northwestern made the NIT seeded in the first rounds against the University of Rhode Island. We could hardly believe the coincidence. It must have been the luck of the Irish! Not only did we re-arrange our travel plans to arrive early in the day so we could get tickets to see Northwestern against Rhode Island, we also spotted a bar selling Guinness right across from our gate this morning. Luck!

We landed in Providence to a warm welcome from Coach and his Wildcat foamhead on top of the car!  We started our St. Patty's Day at Trinity Brewhouse downtown Providence as Coach pointed out that we probably wouldn't be able to get in tomorrow or Sunday as it is located directly across from the Dunkin' Donuts Center, where the games were to be played.  Naturally, we thought this was a wise choice to begin our tour of Providence while he finished up his duties at the office.

We started with the Larkin's Irish Stout.  I loved their description: "King of Irish beer styles, Stout is known around the world for its smooth drinkability and rumored for its medicinal purposes.  This extremely dark, smooth, creamy beer, has a thick full body, and a roasted malt flavor. It 'gives you strength'!"  But it wouldn't be us in a brewery without a sampler. (Not our Dunkin' Donuts in the background..nope). See ratings below.

	Beer Sampled	Scottie	Lindsay
	Kolsch
	Tommy Red
	Artisanal Belgium Amber (Dubbel)
	Rhode Island I.P.A.
	Marzen (Oktoberfest)
	Larkin's Irish Stout

After an extended lunch, we walked around downtown Providence finding the Rhode Island State House, Providence Place mall, and Waterplace Park (the scene of WaterFire, where about a hundred braziers are lit at once on certain evenings throughout the year) before heading to an Irish pub, Rí Rá.  It was St. Patrick's Day, afterall!

Later that evening, we met up with AG, Nick, and Caitlin for a drive to Kingston, RI to the Ryan Center to see the 'Cats take on the Rams in the highly anticipated first round match-up in the NIT.  Well, maybe highly anticipated to the very few Northwestern fans in attendance.  The attendance was actually quite low which we thought might be due to Spring Break for the students, but we later found out that the students preferred to just party on St. Patty's Day rather than attend this tournament game.  If this was played in Evanston, I'm sure the kids would have come in record numbers. It's not everyday we get to play in post-season!   

 

Kyle Rowley got the start for the 'Cats in place of an "injured" Luka Mirkovic, but we just assumed Carmody was punishing him for his poor performance in the last Big Ten Tournament game against Purdue.  Within the first 3 minutes, Shurna launched two 3-pointers with such ease that I thought, for just a few minutes, maybe we'll have this game in the bag.  The Rams went on a bit of a run creating an 8-point lead for themselves, but Thompson, Nash, Crawford, and Rowley went on an 8-point run themselves including the first collegiate dunk by Rowley!  And again, I sighed in relief.  Of course, at the half, the 'Cats were down 7 again with the score at 30-37.  Could this team frustrate us any more?  Curse?

The Rams and 'Cats traded treys during the first few minutes of the second half, but any sort of run the 'Cats went on, the Rams came back with an answer "plus 1" winning 76-65.  They won the game at the foul line going 19 for 28 while the 'Cats only had 10 attempts.  But they also won it by shooting 47% to 39.3%.  Or maybe the 'Cats just lost it by turning over the ball, not moving their feet, and missing some open looks.  We watched the game spiral out of control, and I think back to those first two three-pointers by Shurna in the first 3 minutes now as the only time the 'Cats had a lead.  Such a disappointing end to a promising start of the season for Northwestern. Curse?

We waited around for Carmody to wrap-up his post-game radio interview, so Coach could heckle him and that was the last thing I'll remember of the 2009-2010 season.  Good times!  See all the pictures from our first day in Providence in my photo album.