Photo courtesy of Ramapo Athletics
The Bradley Center played host to Hype Night to promote the men’s and women’s basketball teams last night.
The night was full of contests for the fans and players of both teams.
Hundreds of students packed the gym to cheer on their fellow Roadrunners, hoping for them to continue their success from the contests into the season, and eventually the NJAC Playoff Tournament.
Junior forward Tom Bonacum was a big fan of the turnout at Hype Night.
“It was a lot of fun. It was nice to see everyone come out and support,” said Bonacum. “It’s good to see the community on campus, and we hope everybody is excited.”
The night started with shooting contests with Ramapo students trying to make a layup, a free throw and a three-pointer in 30 seconds. The winner earned $500 to the Ramapo bookstore.
Other contests included an obstacle course, where a fan and a player had to hop inside of a potato sack, followed by walking while balancing an egg on a wooden spoon. After the slow walk, the competitors would have them hit a cornhole shot, followed by weaving through placemats in order to make a layup.
Following the obstacle course came more basketball-skilled contests including a free-throw contest, a three-point contest and a hard-nosed game of knockout.
Senior guard Kellie Lane was one of the victors of knockout, beating out men’s guard Jimbo Long.
“My favorite part of the night was when I won the knockout contest and beat Jimbo,” said Lane.
After the contests, the women’s team was introduced to the crowd of Ramapo Rowdies.
After the women’s team was introduced, six freshmen and two transfers participated in the “Ju Ju On That Beat” dance, much to the delight of the crowd and the veterans on the team.
“The freshmen and transfer dance was absolutely the highlight of the night,” said Lane. “They really practiced hard and I appreciate their effort.”
Following the dance, the men’s team came out to the floor full of dance moves and handshakes.
Fans got to see an early taste of Ramapo basketball. After the intros the women scrimmaged on the Bradley Center floor. After the women took the court, the men were in action in a scrimmage filled with dunks and wild alley-oops.
After the scrimmages came more contests until members of the men’s team participated in a dunk contest. Basketballs were flying all over the place, including off the walls for a dunk and freshman Jordan Zagadou even dunked over the loser of knockout in Long.
Zagadou would wind up winning the dunk contest with a dunk from just inside of the free-throw line.
However, Bonacum was not impressed.
“It was average,” he said jokingly. “I’m just kidding. It was good.”
The junior then wondered why the guys had such insane hops.
“It’s weird – a lot of those guys didn’t practice very hard today, but they had the legs to jump.”
As for why the 6’6”, 21-year old Bonacum did not participate – “I’m too old.”
The night ended with one more contest: one half-court shot to win a choice of a 40-inch television, $250, or a $250 gift card to Ticketmaster. However, no one was able to convert.
The women’s team will kick off their season on Nov. 15 against Yeshiva University at the Bradley Center at 7:30 p.m., while the men will try to make another run to the NJAC Playoff Tournament on Nov. 18 against Colby-Sawyer College, with their first home game coming against NJAC opponent William Paterson on Nov. 22. They were eliminated from the tournament by TCNJ after not making the NJACs since the 2012-13 season.
“We’re super excited for the reason, really,” said Lane. “I was happy to see the turnout of the student body to support us, and we’re ready to go.”
Bonacum echoed Lane’s comments about his own team.
“We’re really excited – we have a lot of talent,” said Bonacum. “We’re a little sloppy right now, but hopefully we string it together and have a good year.”
rmorik@ramapo.edu
