When you think of New York City basketball, certain names and places immediately come to mind. Walt Frazier, Bernard King and Patrick Ewing patrolling the Madison Square Garden cedar. Latter-day torchbearers like Stephon Marbury, Jalen Brunson, Chamique Holdsclaw and Breanna Stewart. The rich lore beyond the storied college haunts of Rose Hill Gym and Carnesecca Arena that stretches from Harlem’s Rucker Park to the Cage on West 4th Street to Dyckman Oval in Washington Heights, the blacktop domains of playground legends like Earl “The Goat” Manigault, Pee Wee Kirkland and Rafer “Skip To My Lou” Alston.
What you don’t normally think about is New York University, the downtown school better known for its academic clout, interwoven Greenwich Village campus, celebrity alumni and $5.9bn endowment than for any of its sports teams. Yet it’s here, inside a 2,000-seat basement gym tucked two floors beneath Bleecker Street, where the Violets have quietly built one of the most dominant programs in college basketball today.
