The current Madison Square Garden is located at 7th Avenue between 31st and 33rd Streets.

NEW YORK | This stage, among the most famous venues in the world, has quite a history.

It claims to be the only place where all four Beatles performed solo. Barnum & Bailey�s Circus played to packed houses here. Elvis Presley and Frank Sinatra belted out a few tunes in the place.

Yes, there really is nothing like Madison Square Garden.

Tonight, the college from the Little Apple takes its act to the Big Apple. At Madison Square Garden. The Kansas State basketball team hopes to put on quite a show at 6 p.m. when it faces Notre Dame in the Jimmy V Classic.

Wildcats senior guard Clent Stewart is well-versed on what Madison Square Garden means.

�It�s tradition, a place I�ve seen all my life on TV,� Stewart said. �It�s the Knicks and the Celtics. Michael Jordan. You think about all of the great players, all of the great teams that have had a chance to play there. Not everybody gets that chance to play there.�

Ask anybody who is familiar with Madison Square Garden, and one of the first things they mention is a common theme.

ESPN analyst Digger Phelps said it. Former K-State coach Tex Winter said it. Current Wildcats coach Frank Martin said it, too.

�I�m sure they�ll (his players) be a little jacked up about playing in what everyone calls the mecca of college basketball,� Martin said.

K-State basketball has had only a few opportunities at Madison Square Garden. The first came in 1948, during the NCAA Final Four. The Wildcats lost to Holy Cross 60-54.

�If you haven�t played in Madison Square Garden, you haven�t played basketball,� Winter, who is a consultant for the Los Angeles Lakers, said last week. �It was New York City. A basketball mecca. It has the tradition. The history. I played (and coached as an assistant for K-State in 1948) in the old Garden, and to me, that was it.�

Phelps, who will be at the Garden tonight for the doubleheader that also features Memphis against Southern California, coached there when he was at Fordham and Notre Dame.

�I made sure we tried to play two places every year � The Palestra (in Philadelphia) and the Garden,� Phelps said. �It�s the mecca of college basketball as well as the NBA. It had the NIT back in the day when it was a bigger tournament than the NCAA. When you play in the Garden, it just rocks.�

Martin just hopes to leave this landmark on a high for a change.

�That building left a bad taste in my mouth the last time I was in there,� said Martin, who was at Madison Square Garden in 2005-06 as a Cincinnati assistant in the Big East tournament. �(Syracuse�s) Gerry McNamara hit a 32-foot three-pointer to break our hearts and knock us out of the NCAAs. I�m looking forward to going back in that building and having a different memory of it.�

2007/12/04       By Howard Richman  - The Kansas City Star 

Posted:  5th. December 2007