Mascotted this, Big East Tourney Quarter-Finals

PJ Carlesimo was in town for national ESPN Radio, so my goal was to get his autograph (Dream Team 1!). Problem was, I couldn't find him for a while since they've never had a national radio broadcast and they didn't put them courtside. After a long while, I was able to locate him set up in the upper press area. In the meantime, with the Celtics playing Milwaukee the next night, Brad Stevens and Gordon Hayward were in the Butler section. Fortunately I had worn Butler gear (it came before MU in the order, didn't really have a preference for this one), and at the half was able to get down to their area and get Hayward to sign 1 card (of 2) and Stevens on my only card of him. During the pregame, DoseOfReality had Wojo cards and leftover Anim cards so I got those, that was a nice bonus. Second half I started out sitting about 5 rows in front of Carlesimo with no one within 10 feet of me on either side, but alas was booted from the seat by an overzealous usher during the under 16 timeout. At that point I stood in the SRO area by Leinie's and watched until about 2:00 remained. Game ended and Carlesimo actually had a fairly long postgame wrap, to the point where I was able to go to floor level and get Pete Gillen (CBSN broadcast) to autograph my 1 remaining card of him after his postgame interview, and walk back up. I held off the overzealous usher's bum rush attempt by saying I was just waiting for Coach and then I'd go. He eventually came down and was good enough to sign 5 cards. This was awesome and I headed out. During the preparation for postgame, I had gotten the Gillen and Carlesimo cards separated from the box, and the remaining Hayward card was in the mix. To avoid confusion, I put it in a sleeve I had to hold an oversized card so that I wouldn't have to pull the box out again; I had noted that Stevens and Hayward went into the BU locker room postgame so it wouldn't have helped to go to their postgame section. I walked out of the arena and was heading to my car when I saw a vehicle stop to pick up passengers, 2 of which were Stevens and Hayward. Luckily the remaining Hayward card was accessible and he had to wait for someone else to enter the van ahead of him, so I was able to get him to sign that one just barely, but it was great fortune. MU won by the rule with about 9:59 remaining after BU had been ahead most of the game.

Great stadium. Try the BBQ Pork Belly. Amazing!