Thursday, January 29, 2009

The Wildcats Say Goodbye To The Spectrum With A Win

The game may not have been an all-time classic, but for us in Philadelphia, last night's game will be remembered for quite some time. Last night, the Villanova Wildcats closed out college basketball at the Wachovia Spectrum by beating Pittsburgh 67-57 , finally giving the Wildcats a signature win that they so desparately needed.

However, last night was the last time a college basketball game will ever be played at the Spectrum. The Philadelphia Phantoms of the AHL, who use the Spectrum as their home ice, will finish up their season there the Philadelphia Kixx will ifnish up their season there as well, the Sixers have one more game at the Spectrum in March and that's it. The stadium is set to be demolished later on in the year.

Aside from being the home of the Villanova Wildcats, the Wachovia Spectrum is known for being the home of one of the greatest plays in college basketball history. It was Duke and Kentucky in overtime in the East Regional Final (Elite 8) of the 1992 NCAA basketball tournament. Kentucky was leading 103-102. Yeah, I think you know where this is going....I'll just cue the YouTube video and Christian Laettner.



Good times at the Spectrum.......good times. I'll have much more on the Spectrum as we get closer to the demolition.

Update: It turns out that Bob Ford of the Philly Inquirer and I have some pretty similar thoughts. For it turns out that his article in the mornings paper "Wildcats give Spectrum a fitting farewell". Either I sub-consciously saw it as I was looking at headlines this morning or it was a pure coincidence, but either way, no copyright infringement was intended by me taking the same title. I doubt anyone noticed, but just to be safe, I have retitled my post.

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