Holiday Festival-shadow of its former self

BrookJersey Redmen

BrookJersey Redmen

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Did you see this year's lineup for Holiday Festival at the Mecca of Basketball.

St. John's v. St. Francis in the prelim, followed by Appalachian State v. Hofstra in the second game. Plus, it is on Dec. 6, not that close to the "Holiday",

Wow!

Gone are the days this was a Premier event when college basketball powerhouses stormed into town!

Say goodbye to Indiana, Michigan with Cazzie Russell, UCLA with John Wooden, Princeton w Bill Bradley, and the North Carolina.

I know this isn't news really, but besides us, this year's field is, maybe, the worst ever.
 
I saw the game for this year's Festival on our school's website, but when I went to the Garden's website for the calendar of events it was not even listed. They have only listed the Rangers game that night for Dec. 6th.
 
Doubleheader on the floor laid over ice already down? How many players do we lose to injury from this adventure?
 
I bet next year Incarnate Word gets invited to the Holiday Festival.

Incarnate Word, I had to go to Wikipedia to look it up, had anyone ever heard of this school before seeing it on our schedule this year.

How did that game get scheduled?
 
Others have mentioned this in past postings, but wouldn't it be better (rhetorical question) if MSG sponsored an annual NYC/Metro area matchup, compared with what has unfolded ?


Perhaps rename it The Joe Lapchick Holiday Festival.


If MSG insisted on a one day event, a St. John's-UConn and Seton Hall-Iona twin bill ( one could come up with their own match-ups), would fill (at a minimum) at least 16K seats, if not more.
 
Doubleheader on the floor laid over ice already down? How many players do we lose to injury from this adventure?
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That's pretty common. Quite a few of our games are played with the ice below.
 
Doubleheader on the floor laid over ice already down? How many players do we lose to injury from this adventure?
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That's pretty common. Quite a few of our games are played with the ice below.
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The ice never leaves. The ice is melted a few weeks after the stanley cup playoffs but other than that it stays level.
 
Others have mentioned this in past postings, but wouldn't it be better (rhetorical question) if MSG sponsored an annual NYC/Metro area matchup, compared with what has unfolded ?


Perhaps rename it The Joe Lapchick Holiday Festival.


If MSG insisted on a one day event, a St. John's-UConn and Seton Hall-Iona twin bill ( one could come up with their own match-ups), would fill (at a minimum) at least 16K seats, if not more.
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The Holiday Festival has become the Lapchick, just in a different venue, already.
 
JSJ

Your idea is grand, and so terrific to honor the legend of Joe Lapchick.

Also the old Holiday Festival was always a two day event, what happened there?

Although with this year's teams, who'd want a second day?
 
JSJ

Your idea is grand, and so terrific to honor the legend of Joe Lapchick.

Also the old Holiday Festival was always a two day event, what happened there?

Although with this year's teams, who'd want a second day?
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The festival hasn't been a two day for a few years now.
 
Festival went away from 2 day format because the big east moved to an 18 game schedule and the season now started before January 1st.

Secondly, the holiday festival wasn't considered an exempt tournament therefore it counted as two games on the schedule and coach Lavin did not want to play two consecutive games in that format. The consecutive games are more meant for Maui, Barclays tourney etc..
 
Festival went away from 2 day format because the big east moved to an 18 game schedule and the season now started before January 1st.

Secondly, the holiday festival wasn't considered an exempt tournament therefore it counted as two games on the schedule and coach Lavin did not want to play two consecutive games in that format. The consecutive games are more meant for Maui, Barclays tourney etc..
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Also the exponential growth of exempt tournaments would make it near impossible to get a pair of quality teams to take two games out of their allotment to play each other for the right to play St Johns after they beat NJIT (hopefully). Just a different landscape nowadays. What year was it that STJ played UNC in the consolation game?

http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/college/ghost-holiday-festivals-article-1.993236
 
Nice article re the holiday festival, in what I believe was the new garden's initial year. Those years, the festival had eight teams and lasted three days, and was usually sold out. The year we beat NC in the semis, we beat Michigan State in the first round. I was still in elementary school for the 1964-65 Holiday Festival victory over Michigan, but another good one was in 1967 or 1968, when we beat Syracuse in the first round, edged a ranked BC in the second round, before losing a close one to a ranked Columbia team in the final. That Columbia team, which had three future NBA players, got to the final by beating powerhouse Louisville in the semis. The final night was a triple-header and the cost, with a high school G.O. card, was about two dollars. Special time for NYC college ball.
 
The year of the newspaper strike, 62/63 season, NYU's magnificent seven played Illinois with Billy Burwell and Skip Thoren in the semis and lost in overtime, despite Barry Kramer's 42 points, then beat St. Bonaventure with Myles Aiken and Fred Crawford a shadow of himself after a bout with TB, in the consolation game. Sitting in the second row under the basket at the old garden on 49th street not the worst way to spend an evening.
 
Honestly am only thinking that with the TV revenue from MSG network, the garden somehow scratches a profit in a slow time of year. The attendance is horrific.
 
I remember the days when we played the Lapchick tourney in Queens, not Manhattan.
 
I remember the days when we played the Lapchick tourney in Queens, not Manhattan.
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There are some people here who remember using their G.O. card to get into the Garden for a nickel.
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I am one of those people but can't remember it (or anything else for that matter)
 
I remember using my high school G.O. card to get into Knicks' games at the Garden for $.50.

The lineup: Walt Bellamy at center, Willis Reed (the twin towers) and Dick Van Ardsdale forwards, Howie Komives and Dick Barnett guards, can't remember too many other players on those pre-Dave Debuschere teams.

Then of course the all time GREAT trade with the Pistons for Dave D. giving up Walt and Howie and allowing Willis to move to his natural center position. The rest was history when the draft Saluki Walt Frazier.

Haven't much rooted for the Knicks since '73, lost any interest in the NBA a long time ago except for semi-following favorite St. John's and Big East players.
 
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