THP #61: Joes vs Joes

St. Joseph’s College vs University of Saint Joseph’s – Standish, Maine
March 1, 2026
Men’s basketball
GNAC Championship Game

I have anxiety. Bad. It comes in waves. When it crashes into my mind it hits spots only it knows how to get to and it craters me. It’s a full catastrophe. Death. Hell. Horrors. All blow to the surface like a volcano going off. 

Medication helps. Mantras help. And more than anything, it is being in community with people that helps me the most. To do a good, whether that is improving the society in a tiny way or just making a silly pun for a chuckle of a friend, building and being in community is the salve that always soothes my aching mind.

Which brings me to the Discord server. I went to this game with my friend Kerry, who I met through this very server years ago, a digital commune of about 500 people all connected by being commenters at Defector.com.

The thing about community is that it always perseveres. The corporate drivers of the economy desperately want to reshape the world into a misery, just like them. 

They want to turn everything and everyone into gray blobs but still be the grayest and the blobbiest. But, like the tiny little tree that sprouts between the panels of a sidewalk, community finds a way. 

And it is on this server, and with these people, that I feel my most free. I know I’ve stepped over lines and antagonized in my worst moments. I get pulled aside and both talked at and talked with to both check on me and help me improve. 

At my best, I can let my full sicko flag fly going on and on about D3 basketball and cricket and my love of condiments knowing full well that those on the other side, at worst, will just skip on by or roll their eyes. There will never be a sneer and “how could you ever like that?”

I’ve met many people in real life. Some have caught a game with myself and my daughter. 

And there are people I only know by screen name like Noodles and Trashmouth and Biff or I reference them simply by their avatar image (Helmet & Cat). 

Even with the surface of ridiculousness, this little slice of Internet IS real life. The love I feel is true and real and fills up my cup. When my schedule opened up on this Sunday I immediately fired off the message to see if my friend was around. 

As sports keep fragmenting and changing and getting eaten on one end by megacorps and the other by gambling cartels, having something I love deeply to share with people who I care about is the most enriching thing in the world. 

Fight for community. Prioritize people. You’ll never be mediocre or down for the count by investing in those around you. 

There’s always time for a moment with my favorite furry investment. 

Important Cultural Activities

Maine is weird. The good weird. The weird where you start sentences saying “listen man, this is gonna sound nuts but you gotta trust me…”

So my first stop was walking down a hidden path behind a closed auto body shop on a cold Sunday morning. 

It led me to the Maine Classic Car Museum in Arundel, a five-minute detour off I-95. An expansive, simple warehouse where $12 got you entry to stroll through and marvel at dozens of vehicles and even more automotive and motorsport ephemera. 

Sam was manning the desk at the front and was a lovely chat and helpful when I had a question. He gave the tip off the top to be careful when stepping out of the DeLorean because the gullwing doors made it easy to crack your head. He wasn’t wrong.

I love racing and I like cars. I’m not a tinkerer or a collector. I just appreciate the good craftsmanship of a good car, the design of a well-tuned machine. And this place was full of them. From a literal Model T, to the 21st century, the collection was incredible. 

Even more than that, it just made sense. Here’s a room with a nook at one end that was the gift shop, a check-in desk, and a bathroom. That was it. It was zero frills and all cars.

 

Even the lack of any piped in music was a nice touch. I could just focus on the history and the cars in a way that allowed my mind to quiet. Which isn’t how I usually am. I actively write every post here with passive background music to allow me to stay away from my mental noise. 

10/10. Excellent price. The magnet I got was $8 so 20 bucks for the experience was well worth it. Definitely bringing my dad back at some point. And now enjoy some cool cars

 

 

 

The Good Eats

When I reached out to the college about getting a credential for the game the sports information director Corey McCarthy welcomed me with a warm email and recommended a food spot a mile up the road: Patch’s Variety.

Now, I had never eaten a meal at a gas station before. But this was the second time I’d done so this season.

Four Valero gas pumps sat down the hill along the road. inside it was a gas station but with a full kitchen behind the counter.

The menu was classic New England sub shop. Hot subs, cold subs, deep fried sides of all sorts. I went with a cheeseburger sub with a handful of veggies and added the fries to it.

God damn was that good. A hamburger sub served on a hot dog bun felt like the most sacrilegious sandwich possible. Did not care. It was excellent. The meat was juicy and the veggies fresh and crisp.

Crinkle cut fries are the undisputed best of french fries, and these did not disappoint. Just a fantastic meal to chow down on outside on a sunny winter’s day.

I also had a homemade chocolate chip cookie but it disappeared before I could get a picture of it. It was just a fantastic meal, and I hope to get back on a spring evening when I can spread out on the deck and watch the cars go by.

The Campus

Saint Joseph’s College is the lone Catholic college in Maine and has just over 1,000 undergrads. Founded as a women’s college in 1912, the school went co-ed in 1970.

The school is about a half hour west of Portland, right on the edge of Sebago Lake. And, under the snow and sun of a cold afternoon, it looked quite nice.

And the center for athletics is the Harry Alfond Center.

A large building with all the trappings needed for an athletic department, it is separated from the outdoor fields by a parking lot. The 50,000-square foot facility was opened in 1999.

And inside it’s….well, it’s an athletic center complete with lobby and vending machines and trophy cases.

A short walk into the building opens up onto the gym. With seating and standing room for 1,200 it provided a cozy confines for the game as it filled up.

The Game

Over the last decade or so the GNAC has consistently gotten better, especially in the top half of the conference. And the two Joes have been at the forefront of it all, earning national rankings and winning conference titles.

To explain the Joes, St Joseph’s College is where we were in Maine. The University of Saint Joseph’s, the program first coached by former UConn legend Jim Calhoun, is located in West Hartford, CT. Monks vs Blue Jays.

The teams had played two weeks prior, a 23-point win by the Monks, but everything had built to a proper coin flip of a game with the tournament bid on the line. The number crunchers had SJC with just a 50.4% chance of winning on its home floor.

And that’s how the game broke from the gates.

The Monks jumped to the lead and maintained it but the Blue Jays kept it within five all the way through the first 10 minutes. SJC just had guys ready to go to the sky to do what was needed.

And then the Monks slowly started to press down on the game. They started to figure out how to stifle the Blue Jays and turn it into points on the other end with hustle and timing.

Davis Mann’s putback put SJC up nine. Mann finished with 10 points and six rebounds.

Despite giving up size in the interior, the Monks played a frenetic yet well-timed defense that took advantage of the guys’ ability to get in the air and kept the Blue Jays from making close shots.

And the lead began to grow. To 8. To 9. To 12.

Then to 13 points.

Onward to 15 points.

Fifteen would be the gap going into halftime as the crowd was ready to burst at the seams. The question was could SJC keep this up or would the Blue Jays find ways to defensive possessions.

I said to Kerry that I’d love to see USJ put in five points quick in the second half and bring the drama back into this one.

But it was Remijo Wani who scored the first five points of the second half. The lead was 20. The party was on.

The Great Northeast Athletic Conference player of the year, Wani had his day in the spotlight and could do no wrong. I mean, the Monks as a team could do no wrong. It was a near spotless performance especially in the final 20 minutes.

Of the Blue Jays’ 12 turnovers, seven were steals by the Monks. SJC won the glass 38-31 and dished a ridiculous 19 assists on 34 buckets. It was Monks from start to finish as they never trailed.

Tong Maiwen had a comical line of 10 points, 8 rebounds, 8 assists on 57% shooting. Wani Donato, the league’s defensive player of the year, had a double-double with 17 points and 12 rebounds.

This was the game in one play: Remijo Wani is confident control and the Blue Jays unable to do a damn thing about it.

Two minutes earlier John Paul Frazier etched himself in the record books as SJC’s all-time leading three-point scorer. But my camera was off and I got him with this slick finish on the inside instead.

I then missed his next made bucket, also a three, a minute later. He finished with 20 points and shot 6-12 from three.

As the sun began to set, the noise got louder, and the inevitability became a fact. The Monks would win their second straight GNAC championship, and it was a layup from Kevin Rugabirwa that would set the place off.

Saint Joseph’s College 92, University of Saint Joseph’s 58. Final.
Time of game – 1:39:01
Player of the game – Remijo Wani (SJC): 27 points, 6 rebounds, 4 steals, 3 assists
Admission price – $5

…

This SJC team was so much fun to watch and will be a pest to deal with in the NCAA tournament and beyond as the majority of the team is back next year. I love so much getting out to this small campuses in small towns that clearly help build, and mean so much to, the community. It is forever a joy to be in the room on days like these.

And with this trip up to Maine season seven is now a wrap. Not the busiest one for sure with so much going on in life, but I keep hitting the roads now so I can remember who I was in this moment later.

So until November, here’s one for the road…