Arena Adventures: Gentile Center

Arena Adventures: Entry #4

Arena: Gentile Center
City: Chicago, IL
Date: December 11, 2010
Teams: Loyola (IL) vs. #5 Kansas St.

It's not very often you see a top 5 team in the nation playing a road game against a Horizon League opponent. This was not just any other game for Kansas St. though. It was homecoming for star guard, Jacob Pullen. Pullen played his high school ball at Proviso East in Maywood, IL and his mother in fact works as a database analyst for Loyola University - Chicago. K-State head coach, Frank Martin, promises his recruits a homecoming game in their senior season as part of his recruiting tools and I think it is a great way to recruit kids to come play in Manhattan, KS (besides getting the opportunity to square off each season with the likes of Kansas, Texas, and Oklahoma). As a result, this game was all about K-State and Jacob Pullen.

Obviously most teams in the Horizon League do not have state-of-the-art venues and the Gentile Center is no exception. With bleacher seating for most of the fans and a capacity of under 6,000 or so, it is a perfect arena for a mid-major school; not exactly some place you would expect to see a Big XII team venture to. The atmosphere of the game was pretty electric at tip with a plethora of K-State fans in the building decked out in their purple and white hoping to see their star put on a show for the hometown crowd. Early on, it looked like it would be a pretty standard Power 6 school running a mid-major out of the gym as K-State grabbed a quick 10-2 lead. However, Loyola battled their way back behind the play of former Wisconsin Mr. Basketball, Andy Polka, and Ben Averkamp. From the beginning, the Wildcats looked a bit disinterested in the game besides Pullen, who one could tell was trying a bit too hard to show off for the home folks.

By halftime, it was only a 5 point lead for K-State as they shot less than 40% for the half were actually outrebounded by Loyola in the first half even though the size and strength of players like Curtis Kelly, Freddy Asparilla, and Jordan Henriquez-Roberts should have had the upper hand. As the game progressed, it continued to be a back-and-forth contest as the referees continued to call numerous fouls and take all flow out of the game whatsoever. With both teams in the bonus by the 10 minute mark of the 2nd half, it was quickly looking like this game was going to come down to whether or not K-State could make enough FTs in the clutch moments as they are one of the worse FT shooting teams in the country.

As the crowd continued to get on the officials for the constant whistles on K-State, the atmosphere became quite tense. Most K-State fans I think came into this game expecting it to be over by halftime. Turns out, this game would not be over until the final seconds. With K-State struggling to score consistently, both from the field and the charity stripe, the Wildcats found themselves up only 3 with 45 seconds left. Pullen calmed knocked down 2 FTs to give the Wildcats a 5 point lead that would never become less by the final horn. When the clock read all zeroes, K-State had escaped the Gentile Center with a 68-60 win behind 19 points from Pullen, but on a paltry 5/17 from the field.

I applaud Coach Martin for his approach to these games and being willing to take a highly-ranked team like the Wildcats on the road to unfamiliar territory for what is basically a lose-lose game for him and his team in most peoples eyes (if they lose it's damaging to ranking, RPI, and team confidence; if they win, well they should have won). In the end, the Gentile Center got a great game between a highly ranked Power 6 team and a team that having seen them in person could still be a sleeper team in the Horizon League despite the Ramblers 0-2 start to conference play.