A maintenance worker hangs posters of this year's Big 5 Hall of Famers.
Greetings from the Palestra. As I mentioned on Thursday, this is my second annual attempt to get here before the St. Joe's student section arrives for their game against Penn.
I arrived at 3:52 p.m., and on my way down I expected the doors to be locked and the place to be pretty quiet. But much to my surprise, the building was full of activity.
It turned out there was a JV game going on between Penn and Northfield Mount Hermon, a high school in Mount Hermon, Mass., that has sent a number of players to the Ivy League in recent years. It is also the alma mater of La Salle's Terrell and Jerrell Williams.
Admission to the game was free, so I grabbed the first door handle I came across and walked right in. But as far as I could tell, there were no St. Joe's fans in the building.
I had actually expected some to be here by now, or at least for my project to be noted in some form on the Hawk Hoop Club message board. But maybe they were still trying to park over by New Deck Tavern for their pregame festivities (and they have good taste in pregame establishments, I must say).
So I did a quick lap around the concourse, then went outside to sit and wait.
The newly decorated St. Joe's display case on the Palestra concourse.
At 4:10, St. Joe's athletic director Don DiJulia arrived. He said that "probably by about 6-ish we'll see some bodies," because that's when the school-chartered buses are leaving campus.
So mission accomplished, I guess. But it does leave me with a lot of time to kill. Check back for updates; I'll start a new liveblogging post at game time.
