Sharing the courts: students and team members play basketball at the Ray

The Ray Mayer Fitness Center is where everyone goes to work out to stay in shape or just to get some recreational exercise in like squash, swimming, and basketball.

Every now and then you can play basketball on one of the four basketballs courts and get some pick-up games under your belt. At certain times throughout the day you will see the level of competition on one court different from the other court.

Just from observance you can see your “just for fun” ‘ballers, the ones that go up there to work on their jumpshot and to break a sweat. Then you have the serious hoopers or just the regular players that go up to the Ray for some real competition to where the game could get critical and heated.

These types of players you can see had some type of basketball history in them as far as possibly playing on some high school or AAU teams.

Then you have a few of DePaul Men’s and Women’s basketball players coming into gym in the evening to look at the “regular” basketball players and depending on how they feel might run a couple games at the Ray.

Over the last few years, plenty of people have wondered if either of the basketball teams were allowed to play recreational basketball at the Ray due to the fact that they could get seriously injured playing against the general public.

With it happening almost every day, if you really support the basketball team and go to all of their games this would be concern to you, especially with the rise of DePaul’s star forward Cleveland Melvin and star guard Brandon Young. The men’s basketball team is starting to go in the right direction after improving in overall wins this past season with a 12-19 record.

“We go up there just to shoot around, hoop, just get a quick run in,” Melvin said.

The men’s basketball team manager Ryan Ornstein confirmed that the players playing at the Ray isn’t a problem.

“The coaches really don’t like it when they play up there during the season, but there isn’t anything against them playing at the Ray during or after the season,” he said.

Every now and then you can see a couple players just watching a few people they know ball out for like an hour and walk around campus looking like they are about ready to play anybody.

Having the players play a couple pick-up games is a fun and interesting experience for most people. This gives the regular ‘ballers at the Ray a chance to see if they can hang with the Blue Demons even though they do not go as hard on the court as they do in actual games.

“For the most part it’s been a pretty positive experience. I have never had a problem with the guys up there and for the most part they are easy to play with,” said Anthony Cushion, a DePaul senior and usual Ray Meyer ‘baller.

The players coming up to the Ray is greatly encouraged by the real competitive players on the basketball courts and sometimes there is even open gym basketball at the McGrath Arena for DePaul students to get a chance to play on their practice court or in this case home court.

Students are out there just to have fun either way, so playing with someone like Young or Melvin would be awesome. Unless you are the one playing defense against Young, that probably wouldn’t be your best game. The men’s basketball team just really goes up to the Ray to get a few shots up and get a quick exercise in. Just whatever any students do, don’t hurt any of the guys or women who are on the teams because both teams need as many players healthy as possible.