ABOARD USS MIDWAY, SAN DIEGO, Calif. — Mike Hopkins was the kid in the candy shop.

Syracuse’s 42-year-old assistant coach scampered around the court as spritely as the players — some of which are teenagers — he instructs. He took jump shots on the flight deck of the USS Midway, posed for photos with his fellow assistants Adrian Autry and Gerry McNamara and basked in a moment he had never experienced before.

“This is sweet,” Hopkins yelled with a smile a few minutes after the Orange took the court. “Are you sh*tting me?”

All around him, the reaction was the same. From the moment the Syracuse players and coaches stepped onto the aircraft carrier just after 11 a.m. PST on Saturday, it was a barrage of smiles, picture taking and countless variations of the expression “this is so cool.”

On Sunday, No. 9 Syracuse will take part in the Battle on the Midway against No. 20 San Diego State, and from Jim Boeheim to former walk-on Nolan Hart, all were entranced by the amazing spectacle that is basketball on a ship during their practice on Saturday. A game that was almost canceled twice — one for lack of sponsors and again because of weather concerns — appears as though it will run smoothly according to the revised schedule and create a unique new chapter in Syracuse basketball’s storybook.

“I think it’s great for these players to be in this venue,” Boeheim, Syracuse’s head coach, said. “I’m happy to be here. I think it’s great. It’s a life experience that these guys will be able to think about for the rest of their lives.”

The cell phones emerged for tweets and pictures as soon as the Orange exited the bus and climbed the gangway up to the flight deck of the USS Midway. With headphones draped around their shoulders, players and coaches snapped pictures of the hoop, ship and each other.

Hopkins, a California native, asked McNamara to take a picture of him and his father before boarding the ship. And once he reached the flight deck where the court is located, Hopkins called the experience “something you’d never do in your life.”

With playing outdoors comes the risk of weather-related issues. But Boeheim said on Saturday that the team’s top priority from day one was to strive for the game to be played on the boat.

He said San Diego State head coach Steve Fisher, a longtime friend, agreed with him, and they were both pleased that moving the game from Friday to Sunday was feasible.

“We’re thrilled to be here,” Boeheim said. “Obviously it was a little more difficult than we had planned. But I think when we saw that the rain was going to be here yesterday, we made, I think, a very difficult decision to move things around a little bit, and I think it will turn out good.”

The difficult decision had more to do with the USS Midway Museum than either of the universities involved. With the game being played on Sunday, Veterans Day, it means the museum must close down on what its marketing director, Scott McGaugh, called “the last day of the year we would ever want to close.”

Boeheim said on Saturday he hoped members of the military and their families could still tour the ship in the morning before the game, but that won’t be the case. The museum is closed for the full day due to the 4 p.m. tipoff.

But he was quick to thank the members of the military — both locally in Syracuse and across the country — for their services, saying these games on aircraft carriers are really to honor those men and women.

“I don’t think we can do too much to draw attention to what the military has done for this country, what the military means to us as individuals,” he said.

Without them, the game that will surely last in the minds of Boeheim and his players wouldn’t be possible. Michael-Carter Williams called it “a moment to cherish,” and DaJuan Coleman described the overall experience as crazy.

So as the team practiced atop a ship so mammoth it’s been dubbed a “city at sea” but whose ceilings are so low most of the players must crouch in their locker room, the allure of basketball on a boat was imparted on Syracuse for the very first time.

“I can’t believe we’re on a ship though,” Coleman said. “This is crazy.”

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Published on November 10, 2012 at 9:00 pm

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