Joe McCaffery’s Blog

 I was surfing the web the other morning and was pleasantly surprised when I realized that the Griz Basketball team was going to be playing Santa Clara later that night. As luck would have it Toni had the night off so we loaded up the kids when I got home from work and headed down to the game.

On our way in I ran into a buddy of mine from grad school that used to play basketball for the Griz. He was actually doing color commentary for the radio broadcast back in Montana. He had to hurry into the arena and I had to chase down Nolan so we only had a chance to talk for a few seconds, but it was still nice to see a familiar face. Too bad he didn’t have any eligibility left though because UM could have used him.

The Griz just didn’t matchup well with Santa Clara. They couldn’t get into a rhythm on offense and really seemed to struggle stopping the Broncos inside, one guy in particular. He was huge 6′-10” kid and one of he cheapest players I’ve ever seen to boot. He wasn’t as good as he was big, but he was very effective at using his size to his advantage. The Griz got him into foul trouble in the second half and were able to make it an 8-point game. They couldn’t hold off a late run though and ended up losing 60-49.

The outcome aside it was Nolan’s first Griz basketball game so it was still memorable. SCU has a really nice arena and it was mostly empty so we could pretty much sit wherever we wanted. Sitting still was the last thing on Nolan’s mind though. It took all of five minutes and he was off and running. To Toni’s credit she chased Nolan for most of the night and let me enjoy the game.

Jayden and Keegan seemed to enjoy the game too, though Keegan did get a little bored at the end. Jayden has two years of basketball under her belt and actually understood what was going on so she was into the game until the final buzzer. She was actually kind of bummed after the game…she’s such a big Griz fan.

Hopefully I’ll be able to take her to Sacramento when the Griz play in January or in February when the Lady Griz come to town. I’m not sure if we’ll make one or both games or if it’ll just be me and Jayden yet, but I do know there is a 99.9% chance that Nolan will be hanging out with Grammie that night.