Basketball

I am very proud to report that I have at last found an American sport that I like to watch! I also understand it (mostly) which definitely helps with the enjoying it bit. In case you didn't read the title of this post.. that sport is basketball!

Tonight I went to my very first basketball game ever. It was such fun! The SDSU Aztecs were playing the Airforce at Cox Arena - the massive indoor arena on campus. I think it seats about 10000 people or so. It wasn't packed but it was probably about 3/4 full. Not just of students either, the public can buy season tickets to watch the games. San Diego doesn't have a pro basketball team and SDSU's team is really good so it's very popular. Tickets for students are free, you just have to go to the ticket office on campus and they swipe your student card. It was quite funny today - you can only get one ticket per student card but I needed to get a ticket for my friend Nicky who is a student too but had forgotten to get one. So I ended up asking a couple of people in the general vicinity of the ticket office if they were going to the game and if not would they mind getting an extra ticket for me? I hit it lucky third time round and a very nice girl got me an extra ticket :-)

The game started at 8pm and the atmosphere inside Cox Arena was quite something! There were cheerleaders, the SDSU band and of course all the students jumping up and down and shouting and singing. The students are also very vocal - they boo the ref/umpire when he makes a bad decision (in their opinion) and go crazy when one of the SDSU players score. Also when the Airforce had a free throw facing the side that all the students were sitting on then everyone stands up and jumps around waving signs and big cutouts of faces (like Britney with a shaved head and Borat etc) trying to distract them while they take a shot - it was really funny.

I think the other reason I enjoyed the game so much is not only because it's simple to understand but also because it's very fast paced. Which is totally unlike baseball which is just plain slow or American football which has ad-breaks every 2 seconds (the last 59 sec of the Superbowl, which is all I watched, lasted for about 5 mins!)

Oh and the most important bit of course... the Aztecs won! 49-38!