2014 Tim & Erik – Marquette BB Quest - Games #1 and #2

Erik and Tim have made a quest to attend an away Marquette Men's basketball game at each team in the Big East conference. This year (2014) we managed to get two locations in.

Butler University

The Butler Bulldogs play in a very historic facility called the Hinkle Fieldhouse. My college roommate arranged for tickets very near midcourt where we had great seats. Hinkle was constructed in 1928 and was the nation's largest basketball arena at that time. Erik and Tim got to sit in the middle of a section of die-hard Butler fans that seemed to start out contentious but by the end of the game, we had new friends. For a basketball fan, Hinkle field is a pretty cool, old historic place to visit. The guy sitting next to us said that Hinkle "smells" like basketball and you know….it did!!!!

The game: Overtime loss for Marquette!!!

The Butler vs Marquette game was on Saturday afternoon. We spend the late afternoon and early evening with Tim's buddy, Tom Walsh and then hit the road as a snowstorm moved it. It was a long, long drive where we finally got to Washington DC mid-afternoon on Sunday

Georgetown University

Our first stop in D.C. was on campus at Georgetown. Erik nor I had ever been to Georgetown and we were very impressed! Dan Ferris, a Xavier parent and Georgetown alum recommended that we stop at The Tombs, a classic Georgetown restaurant and bar for students.

Our hotel ended up being 2 blocks from the Whitehouse and the weather was perfect. Erik and Tim walked the plaza from one end to the other twice, I think. We walked till we dropped. We stayed at a Sheraton and the hotel manager was absolutely fantastic giving us poor Wisconsin boys' free parking and lots of great tips. We were able to take the subway from our hotel to the Verizon center for the game.

Monday was another gorgeous day so we visited lots more sites; Monday was also Martin Luther King day which meant parking was free and traffic (both foot and car) were very light. Monday night was game time. We ended up having some pretty decent tickets in the second level of Verizon Arena in downtown Washington DC

The game: Our second overtime game of the weekend!!!! Marquette Wins! Erik and Tim got lots of basketball but the overtime win caused us a couple of problems. Since the game was on the east coast, game time is 9pm. The overtime put the end of the game past the last subway train which we really needed to take back to our hotel. We waited about 45 minutes for the DC subway system to put trains back in operation. This all lead to a very, very late start to get on the road. We were looking forward to an all-night drive from DC back to Milwaukee to get Erik back to class on Tuesday afternoon….we Just MADE IT!!!!

As I mentioned a few times already, the weather in DC was great but, a bad snowstorm was moving in and we knew it. We would be driving right into it on our all-nighter drive home. Take a look at the weather on our drive into DC on Sunday (left) and our drive as we were leaving

Site Seeing in Washington D.C.

Remember: this was two Wisconsin guys making the trip in February. I can't imagine that we could have been happier to have 65 degree weather on Martin Luther King Day! That allowed us to do a lot of walking around D.C.

We visited the Ford Theatre:

We saw the White House (many times as our hotel was 2 blocks away), the capitol, Washington Monument, the Lincoln monument, took the subway to Arlington Cemetery, visited the Vietnam and WWII monuments and visited the National Archives to see the Constitution and Declaration of Independence.

On Martin Luther King Day, both Erik and Tim were able to stand on the spot where MLK delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech!