The Tip-Off

Rightly or wrongly, various books and films meant I carried some expectations of college sport to America: Remember the Titans, The Waterboy and even Forrest Gump are just three movies that allude to the sheer scale and hysteria of it all.

But in my first two months at St. John's there's been none of the fanfare that's supposed to accompany college sports. The soccer is of a high standard, but it's worlds away from the thousands of people you see filling (American) football stadiums at southern schools.

The only indicator of something similar lay in the impressive Lou Carnessecca Arena, where a seemingly endless trophy cabinet chronicled the university's successful history in college basketball. The arena itself is named after the school's greatest coach, whose teams reached the post-season in every one of his 24 years in charge.

As we entered October, the build-up to the 2014 season began, culminating in the 'Tip-off' on Friday night: festivities held in the Lou Carnessecca Arena to introduce the men's and women's teams and celebrate the season getting underway.

The mammoth lines that accumulated to get tickets for the event on Friday morning confirmed what the trophy cabinet suggested: this is a basketball school.

That night, over five thousand St. John's students filled the Arena for one of the most ridiculously extravagant school events I've ever been a part of. When you consider that Leicester barely manages to attract those numbers to the rugby at Welford Road (the showpiece event in its sporting calendar), I struggled to get my head around the fact that this many people showed up to a pre-season event in America.

Upon each seat in the venue was a free t-shirt, the third one I've received in less than two months of being here. I'm fairly sure that the school could reduce its $50,000-a-year tuition fees by a third if it simply halved the amount of clothing it seems to giveaway on a weekly basis.

But that was only the beginning. As part of the celebrations, a member of the crowd won an iPad whilst cross-country flights and a $20,000 car are other prizes being offered over the course of the season. At Leicester the most you get for free is a half-chicken from Nando's, and even that involves you having to buy a meal in the first place.

We were also treated to a burrito-eating competition more bizarre than Santiago Vergini's own-goal for Sunderland this weekend, in which some poor soul shovelled handfuls of god-knows-what into their mouth in front of five thousand people. But that was just a warm-up to the main event.

As smoke filled the court for added drama, each player from the men's and women's team was introduced in turn, each to a rapturous reception. In England there are tongue-in-cheek references to BNOCs (Big Names on Campus), but those on the basketball team here are bonafide campus celebrities - to the point where rumours circulate about cars being offered as incentives for the top players to go to school here. It's a completely alien world to the British student.

As if enough cash hadn't been spent already, the evening was capped by a performance from French Montana (although he probably cost less to book than the iPad, let's face it). He insists that he's not "worried about nothing" which was good for him because during that debacle I was seriously worried about my ears.

Culture, Comedy and Michael Jackson

With midterms approaching, I took my mind off the ever-increasing workload with two pretty different outings within a week. First we visited the American Museum of Natural History on Sunday, before frequenting Madison Square Garden for a second occasion, this time to see Aziz Ansari perform on Thursday night.

From what I've seen of New York so far, the Upper West Side - where the AMNH is located - is probably the only area of the city that resembles anything like London. The majority of NYC is so far removed from any other city I've seen in terms of architecture and layout, but the white facade of AMNH would not have looked out of place amongst the V&A and London's own Natural History Museum in South Kensington. I guess there's only so many different ways you can build a museum.

Even though I was expecting it, it still hurt a little to have to pay to enter. I understand New Yorkers pay less than ten per cent tax, but I'm struggling to see where that's going. If your taxes aren't paying for healthcare and museums then what on earth are they paying for? And it certainly isn't going towards city sanitation, either.

Nevertheless, the $20 entry fee proved to be well worth it as it included one of those IMAX shows. We intended to see one about space but my mind was changed at the last minute when I realised there was one about Great White Sharks (narrated by Bill Nighy) and so we split up and did our own thing. I'm pretty pleased with my change of heart as now I know that sharks don't have bones. Who knew?

As a tribute to Theodore Roosevelt, the museum focuses heavily upon New York, with a section entirely dedicated to the state itself. This was basically a timeline of NY's history, starting long before civilisation began (the glaciers in 'Manhattan' during the ice age would have reached the top of the Empire State Building, apparently).

So much of the museum is impressive, from the vast array of Native American artifacts to the giant model of a blue whale that hangs in the Milstein Hall of Ocean Life. I was beginning to think the place was better than London's effort in every way when it suddenly dawned on me that there was not a single killer whale - picture, video or model - in the place. Shocking.

There was a significant change in dynamic later in the week when we swapped the museum for MSG to see Aziz Ansari's stand-up special. Last minute tickets meant we were stuck up on Chase Bridge, so far up and away from the stage that they literally provided you with TVs to watch the action.

We were doing our best to conceal our disappointment at the situation when we were tapped on the shoulder by a member of venue staff and directed down steps to 'better seats'. That was something of an under-statement, as we suddenly found ourselves no more than thirty yards from the stage at no extra expense, merely because they'd failed to sell-out.

Thus we were able to enjoy the full experience of the peculiar Michael Jackson tribute act Ansari threw on before he performed. Apparently the "best in the world", there was something rather unnerving about it, but I guess that's a compliment when someone's trying to impersonate the King of Pop.

With the upgraded seats it would have been hard not to enjoy the evening, but even from our old seats up where the air was thinning it would have been worth every penny. Perhaps it wasn't quite up to the standard of his previous stand-up specials, but I get the feeling MSG adds a little extra to whatever you're watching there.

Sadly it's back to reality again this week as midterms remind me why I'm actually here in New York in the first place.