Media Kitchen Flies to the Garden Championship
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The “Fly to the Garden” final four teams advanced to the championship round after qualifying by winning opening round games at Baruch. The Final Four teams battled it out for two free airline tickets provided for each winning team member via the official airline of the New York Knicks and tournament sponsor Continental Airlines as well as a fully equipped luxury suite at a future Knicks game during the 2008 season. Madison Square Garden, “the world’s most famous arena,” hosted the final four with Knicks legend John Starks on April 16 before the Knicks’ regular season finale against the Nets.
In the first two years of this four-year-old competition, sponsored by Continental Airlines and the New York Knicks, the team from John Wiley & Sons came, saw, and conquered with Andre Duncan aboard. But last year, with “The Missing Link” missing due to playing professional ball in Germany, they were defeated in the Finals by defending champion Team Footprintz. “But now we’ve got my main man back,” John Wiley’s Larry Morris smiles during warm-ups. ”And you know how we do with him around. He ignites our chemistry. He makes us complete.”
“The Missing Link” was no longer missing. So was the championship title winner pretty much a foregone conclusion in the “Fly to the Garden” three-on-three Corporate Basketball Tournament?
Not to mention just about unbeatable?
Still, the other three teams in this Final Four were equally confident. “We’ve been playing together all year,” Footprintz’ Charles Lott says. “Link or no Link, if we play defense, we’ll defend our title.” Not if SL Fashions has anything to do with it, according to point guard John Marcelin who played at Iona under Tim Welsh. “We are the No.1 seed, the only unbeaten team coming in,” he says. “That’s no accident. We have a great shot blocker, lots of quickness. And we’ve already beaten two of these teams during the prelims.” SL is also the only team with a coach present in Brooklyn’s Norman Ostin, a familiar figure around the Entertainers’ Basketball Classic at Harlem’s Rucker Park.
Then there is the mystery entry, Media Kitchen. These first-time Fliers to the Garden have all played together at Yale, which is NCAA Division I (good) but non-scholarship (maybe not so good). Also, they are the lone team here with only three players (definitely not good). Nonetheless, “We’ve playing together for a long time and got lots of chemistry and size,” says the smallest Kichen-ette, 6-1 Michael Smith. “We know what we’re doing. We’re not afraid of anyone.”
This “bring ‘em on” ‘tude is immediately put to the test in the first semifinal where Media Kitchen is disrespecting No.1 seed SL Fashions from the get-go. True, SL owns the quickness-edge but, somehow, it’s not translating. MK goes in front 5-1 hitting some lo-o-o-o-o-ong jumpers and when SL closes the gap to 8-5 by getting up in the shooters’ faces, MK starts to run some beautiful back-cuts Pete Carrill himself would be proud of.
Kitchen cooks 15-9.
Now John Wiley faces Footprintz in a semi-final replay of last year’s Finals. As expected, it’s tense: the champs go in front 5-3 on a familiar Dan Golembewski long-range bomb but Wiley responds with a delicious drive to the hoop by The Link (he IS good) and a deep “J” by Morris for a 7-5 Wiley lead. Lott re-ties it with a heavenly hook but Morris is now unstoppable (10-7 Wiley). Another Golembewski bomb brings the champs within 12-11 -- but then The Link really shows why he’s The Link, scoring every way possible on some exceedingly tough shots.
John Wiley gains a chance to re-gain their crown, 20-15.
Question is, following the emotional victory over their long-time chief rivals, will they have enough juice left for the Kitchen? Or, as it seems more likely, will the short-handed Yalies -- first-timers under pressure, after all -- wear down first?
But they are superb, up 7-2 right away on some purer-than-pure Phil Vitelli jump shots. The Link now shows his quality, bringing his team back into a 10-10 tie with some fine-tuned funkadelia -- and there isn’t a person in the Garden who doesn’t expect the rookie Yalies to fade away from nerves and fatigue at this point.
Instead, they tighten their game another notch, start to run some pick-and-rolls we haven’t seen from them before, and pull back in front. Then at 18-15, and with time running out, they turn it into a free-throw contest -- and these guys don’t lose free throw contests, winning it all 21-15.
Classic Knicks great John Starks hands out the trophies. Each member of the winning team wins two Continental Airlines tickets, and the team wins a night in a fully catered luxury suite at a New York Knicks regular season home game in 2007-08. But none of that has sunk in yet: “We are elated,” smiles Media Kitchen-ite Justin Simon. “To win something like this, and to win it the first time out, is unbelievable. But to win it on the Garden floor…This is really, really special. There are no words to describe how I feel. The three of us, we’ve been playing together for something like forever. So I guess we’ve earned it.”
