Welcome back to another edition of Boom Goes the Dynamite. I’m back as your semi-regular host after a day off with John Stevens covering for me. Today is a kind of weird day of basketball with the best games later in the day going head-to-head against the NBA All-Star game. So hopefully everyone will be sticking with us throughout the day and the real basketball fans (the ones who actually like defense and competition) will stay with us into the night.
1:00 PM: Our early games today are Illinois at Indiana on CBS and Clemson at Virginia on ESPN Full Court and ESPN360.com. We’ll be updating you with highlights of those games throughout the day, but like always if there is something going on that we are missing or we make a mistake leave us a message in the comment section.
1:10 PM: Illinois is up 10-7 early. Bruce Weber‘s club must be riding high after their amazing comeback at Northwestern in their last game. Clemson is tied 3-3 in Charlottesville with 15:54 left in the first half. I’m guessing today is Sean Singletary day at UVA today based on the parts of the pre-game that I caught. Singletary, a 3-time 1st team All-ACC player, is one of three players in ACC history (Danny Ferry and Johnny Dawkins being the others) to have 2,000 career points, 500 career assists, and 400 career rebounds.
1:25 PM: Illinois is up 15-7 as we go to a TV timeout. CBS just showed a graphic about Indiana’s tough losses this year by featuring the games they led, but lost. You know the Hooisers are having a bad year when having a lead of 2 points at some point during the game is highlighted as a tough loss. Meanwhile, UVA is up 16-7 with 11:54 as they head into a timeout as well.
1:30 PM: I just noticed the electronic board on the side of the court at Assembly Hall. I guess it’s a nice fan friendly feature and probably generates some revenue through ads, but I think it looks horrendous in this famous arena. I haven’t noticed it at Cameron Indoor, but I think they should avoid it in the historic arenas.
1:40 PM: Jeff Jordan just hit a jumper for Illinois. As we noted before, he was recently was given a scholarship at Illinois. For those of you who haven’t seen him play, we think you might have missed his only big play of the day if his performance this season is any indication of what we can expect today. He’ll probably be out there quite a bit since Indiana is awful so watch for #13 on Illinois.
1:45 PM: UVA is up 22-16 coming out of a timeout with 5:11 left in the first half. Illinois is up 27-13 with a little less than 5 minutes left in the first half. I’ll be focusing on the UVA-Clemson game for now unless the Illinois-Indiana game gets interesting.
1:55 PM: UVA is up 33-25 at half. That 3 by Terrence Oglesby with a little over a minute left in the first half was Clemson’s first of the day after the Tigers missed their first 10 straight. The Cavaliers might have a chance if the Tigers continue to have difficulty hitting from the outside. Trevor Booker has had a big first half with 10 of Clemson’s 25 points, but it wasn’t enough as none of the other Tigers are playing well today. Illinois is up 38-21 at half.
I’ll be back after halftime of these games.
2:30 PM: And I’m back. Illinois is still killing Indiana, but Clemson has clawed its way back to tie it at 42 with 13:15 left. Loyola (IL) is up on #15 Butler, 21-13 with 7:38 left in the first half.
2:35 PM: Indiana has used a 9-0 run to cut the lead to a dozen and Trent Meacham has 4 fouls. This one could get interesting. . .
2:45 PM: Huge 3 by Calvin Baker as the shot clock expires puts Clemson up 58-55. It’s an 8-point game in Bloomington with 8:20 left. Meanwhile, Butler is getting blown out at home against Loyola (IL), 30-13 with 3:48 left in the first half.
2:50 PM: Since it’s the day after Valentine’s and I’m sure there are a few of you who spent yesterday night alone, (I had a romantic dinner by myself at Denver International Airport with a chicken burrito and a Jamba Juice that I finished on a United Airlines red-eye), I thought I would pass along the news that America’s Sideline Princess Erin Andrews also spent her night alone covering a game in Madison, Wisconsin. She spoke with CNNSI about her thoughts on Valentine’s Day and love.
2:52 PM: Big 3 by Chester Frazier with the shot clock running out stretches the Illinois lead to 9 with less than 5 minutes left. Tie game in Charlottesville with 3:46 left. I’ll be updating more frequently as these games wind down.
2:55 PM:Mike Scott with an “and 1” to give UVA the lead at 70-69 with 3 minutes left. Scott is having a huge game with 18 points and 10 rebounds.
2:58 PM: Sylven Landesberg with a jumper to extend the UVA lead to 3. Booker with a big rebound and put back to cut it to 1 with 2 minutes left as UVA calls a timeout.
3:00 PM: Mike Tisdale with a lay-up to give Illinois a 10-point lead. They have a 10-0 edge in offensive rebounds in the 2nd half. The Hoosiers have been shooting themselves in the foot with their awful FT shooting today (10/21 today). Actually I take that back because they would probably miss their foot today.
3:02 PM: K.C. Rivers makes one of two FTs to give the Tigers a 2-point lead with less than 30 seconds left. UVA calls a timeout as they will probably design a play to try to win the game or take it into OT since the shot clock is off. Clemson should watch the 3-point line because the Cavaliers are 7/14 from beyond the arc today.
3:05 PM: Easy lay-up from Landesberg followed by several missed lay-ups and tips by Clemson means we’re heading for OT.
3:07 PM: Greg Anthony is arguing against the double-bonus rule over on CBS. I’m not even sure what to say about his argument. . .
3:10 PM: Illinois wins by 13. UVA is up 80-77 and Oliver Purnell takes a timeout with 2:44 left in OT.
3:15 PM: UVA is up by 3 with less than a minute left. They might need to hit some FTs to pull off the upset.
3:18 PM: Oglesby just took an ugly 3 with less than 10 seconds left. He was definitely trying to get the foul instead of hit the shot there. UVA wins 85-81. Where’s the “rush the court”? This is definitely one of the slowest developing ones I have seen.
3:30 PM: Quick scoreboard check. . . Notre Dame is up 51-43 with 11:35 left against USF on ESPN360.com while Butler is still down by a dozen with less than 11 minutes left. I don’t have any of these games on TV so I’ll try to check them out on ESPN360.com.
3:40 PM: Notre Dame is falling apart. The lead is down to 2 with 5:49 at the TV timeout. If they lose this one, I can’t see how you can put them in the tournament unless they win the Big East tournament.
3:45 PM: ESPN360 isn’t working for me right now so I’ll be relying on GameCast.
3:50 PM: A pair of big 3s from Kyle McAlarney to give the Irish an 8-point lead with 1:04 left. Loyola (IL) is hanging onto a 5-point lead with 3:03 left at Butler. Matt Howard has 29 points on (11/13 FG) for the Bulldogs, but the rest of the team is shooting 10/33 FG today. That’s a recipe for getting upset.
3:55 PM: Notre Dame makes it FTs at the end and wins 67-57 to keep their fragile tournament hopes alive for another day. Butler is still hanging around. They are down by 4 with 1:21 left.
4:10 PM: Huge upset by Loyola (IL) over Butler. The key to this game was that Matt Howard had no support. Gordon Hayward and Selvin Mack both had off games for the Bulldogs and they weren’t able to overcome a career game out of Jordan Hicks (2.9 PPG) who had 23 today. I wouldn’t expect that to happen too often although Hicks has been in double figures for the past 3 games after not reaching double figures before that this season. Still the loss is a major blow to Butler’s hopes of having a high seed on Selection Sunday and is a setback heading into their game next Saturday against Davidson, who may or may not have Stephen Curry.
4:30 PM: Northwestern is up by 1 at home against Michigan midway through the 2nd half. Both teams need to get on winning streaks if they want to have a chance at an at-large bid. Louisville is up 26-11 against DePaul with 7:51 left in the first half.
4:45 PM: Ok. GameCast is killing me. It looks like Northwestern is up 50-47 with 6:15 left, but the clock keeps on going up and down. This would be a nice bounceback win for Northwestern after blowing the huge lead against Illinois at the end of the game a few days ago.
5:00 PM: Michigan has taken a 3-point lead with 90 seconds left. Northwestern timeout. File the Louisville-DePaul game under “How to rebound from being embarrassed”. The Cardinals are up by 30 at half after losing to Notre Dame by 33.
6:30 PM: Sorry for the 90-minute intermission. It involved a missed phone call and a ticket offer that I ended up missing. I’ll recap it in a bit. In actual basketball news, Michigan scored a big road win over Northwestern, 70-67 in OT. Louisville rolled DePaul by 45! No. That is not a misprint. 45 points. Duke is up 5 at half at Boston College (where I was almost sitting if not for the previously mentioned phone call) thanks to a dozen first half points from Gerald Henderson. The only reason that BC is still in this game is that Duke is having an awful day from 3 (1/9 so far).
6:35 PM: Tyrese Rice just hit a 3 to reach 2,000 career points becoming just the 7th Boston College player to reach that mark. The Duke lead is down to 1 off an “and 1” from Jeff Trapani.
6:40 PM: Lance Thomas just picked up his 3rd foul, which means that Coach K has to bring in Brian Zoubek. Thomas, who really hasn’t emerged as the star that you would expect a McDonald’s All-American to be, has quietly become a solid role player for the Blue Devils. He has 10 points (5/5 FG) and 4 rebounds.
6:45 PM: If it seems like I am focusing on this Duke-BC game, it is because there are literally no other games on right now.
6:55 PM: Tied at 49. The first tie today since it was 2-2. Rice is actually making fairly intelligent plays today instead of the streetball junk passes that he has tried at the games I have gone to. Does Rice only show up against UNC and Duke?
7:00 PM: Kyle Singler sinks a pair of FTs to give Duke a 53-51 lead with 11:26 left. The next 6 minutes will be huge for BC. If they can keep it within 5 points, the pressure will shift to Duke.
7:03 PM: Reggie Jackson hits a 3 and Rakim Sanders gets a breakaway layup to give BC a 58-55 lead with 8:59 left.
7:05 PM: BC is shooting 57% from the field tonight. So much for that vaunted Duke defense. . .
7:10 PM: Lance Thomas gets another basket on a tip-in to end a 6:50 FG drought by the Blue Devils. Singler is headed to the FT line with BC leading 60-57 with 7:40 left as we head to a timeout. I think a win here would basically guarantee the Eagles a NCAA bid since they would have wins over Duke and UNC.
7:12 PM: Big 3 by Tyler Roche to give the Eagles a 65-61 lead. BC is 7/16 from 3 compared to 3/12 for Duke.
7:15 PM: BC survives back-to-back turnovers as Henderson can’t convert a driving lay-up. Trapani and Henderson then trade baskets to make it 67-66 with 4:42 left.
7:20 PM: Another turnover by BC. It looks like they are getting tight. Not to sound too much like Dick Vitale, but Duke has been in these big games a lot more than BC has. Actually pretty much every game Duke plays is the game of the year for the other school so today shouldn’t really be that big of a deal to them. I wonder if that will be the difference tonight.
7:25 PM: Reggie Jackson seems to find himself in the right place at the right time as he’s going to the FT line as he is fouled by Lance Thomas, who has just fouled out. Solid game out of Thomas. If he can contribute down the stretch, that would be a big bonus for the Blue Devils. “Mr. October” misses both FTs. Jon Scheyer responds with a long 2 from the corner to give Duke a 70-69 lead. Trapani gets the rebound and is going to the line after getting fouled by Singler. He makes both FTs to give BC a 71-70 lead with 2 minutes left. Henderson responds with a big shot to give Duke a 72-71 lead with 1:53 left as Al Skinner calls a timeout.
7:30 PM: Rice nails a NBA 3 to give BC a 74-72 lead. How did Duke not keep a man on him? Singler draws a foul on Roche, missed them both, but got the follow to tie the game. Poor job by BC on boxing out, but give credit to Henderson for the nice tip. Reggie Jackson hits a big shot and Henderson misses a 3. Greg Paulus has to foul Rice with 23.4 seconds left and BC up 76-74.
7:32 PM: Rice hits 2 FTs to make it a 2 possession game. Henderson misses a driving lay-up. Get ready for a “rush the court” situation especially with the Super Fans down by the court. You can see them getting ready. Trapani hits a pair of FTs to make it 80-74 with 12.8 seconds left.
7:35 PM: Pretty nice “rush the court” by BC especially for a hockey school. Yes they are a hockey school even if they can’t find a way to beat Boston University to win a Beanpot.
So I figure this is as good a time as any to tell you about my 90 minute hiatus. I wasn’t able to get a media credential to the Duke-BC game because of the high demand from national media. Anyways, I was working on this post all afternoon. Around 5 PM (the last post just before the 90 minute “Nixon tape” gap), I notice that I had a missed call from a friend who has BC season tickets. Apparently he called at 2 PM and I hadn’t noticed because I put my phone on vibrate. Anyways, he said he had an extra ticket so I ran down my stairs while getting dressed to go out in public and sped over to Conte Forum while navigating the retarded Boston drivers and the police blocking a lane on Commonwealth Avenue. I finally get there only to find out that he had given away the ticket (totally my fault). So I drove back once again navigating the retarded Boston drivers and got back to doing tonight’s Boom Goes the Dynamite. At least it wasn’t as frustrating as when I tried to see the Jason Williams–Carlos Boozer–Mike Dunleavy Jr.–Chris Duhon Blue Devils at Boston College in 2002. That time I stood out in the freezing rain trying to get a scalped ticket at a reasonable price. After standing in the freezing rain for over an hour, I finally had a reasonable offer and was pulling the money out of my wallet when a man comes up with his mentally handicapped kid in a wheelchair. The girl who was going to sell me her ticket looks at me, says “Sorry”, and hands my ticket to the man and his kid for free. Not my finest moment. . .
7:45 PM: No Dwayne Collins, who sprained his ankle in practice yesterday. This could get ugly unless Jack McClinton goes off. Miami already lacks depth and now they go from 2 deep to 1 deep against the most talented team in the country.
7:50 PM: Wayne Ellington hits a 3 from the corner to cut it to 7-6 after Miami opened up the game on a 7-0 run. The last time these two teams met, Rush the Court was there live-blogging the proceedings. That was the game where Ellington came alive in the 2nd half hitting 7 straight 3s.
8:00 PM: McClinton has 12 of Miami’s 14. He’s going to need to have some support or the Tar Heels are going to pull away after halftime.
8:15 PM: Brian Asbury hits back-to-back jumpers for Miami to cut it to 20-19. Adrian Thomas hits another 3 after a UNC basket to tie it at 22. Lance Hurdle hits a driving lay-up after Jimmy Graham swats away a Ty Lawson lay-up. Hurdle’s lay-up gives the Hurricanes a 24-22 lead. Julian Gamble adds a lay-up to make it 26-22. It looks like the Miami guys read my post as the Hurricanes not named McClinton have scored the last 12 for Miami.
8:30 PM: It’s 29-26 UNC going into halftime. Solid defense by the Hurricanes so far holding the Tar Heels to 12/33 FG (36.4%). UNC’s lowest output this season has been 76 (in a 15-point win against UVA).
8:45 PM: Miami keeps hanging around. It helps when they can hack Tyler Hansbrough and not get called for a foul. Nice finish by Deon Thompson gives the Tar Heels a 40-35.
8:50 PM: Interesting game in the MAC with Eastern Michigan (3-19, 1-9 in MAC) leading Bowling Green (14-7, 7-3 in MAC) on the road by 5 with 2:36 left.
9:00 PM: Ellington hits a 3 to stretch the lead to 14. This is getting close to danger time for the Hurricanes. If they can’t get it down to a single digits pretty soon they are in danger of getting run out of the gym.
9:05 PM: 3 straight baskets by McClinton (a floater followed by back-to-back 3s) cut the lead to 6 with less than 10 minutes left.
9:15 PM: McClinton hits a pair of FTs (the first attempts of the night for Miami) to cut it to 58-52 with 5:50 left. He follows it with a driving lay-up to cut it to 4 with under 5 minutes left. Graham gets a rebound and gets away with a walk. The no call allows him to get it out to an open Asbury who hits a 3 to cut it to 1. Are we going to have 3 ACC powers lose on the road in the same day?
9:20 PM: Huge block by Danny Green on a lay-up attempt by McClinton.
9:22 PM: Interesting stats from the game tonight: Jimmy Graham has 5 blocks tonight after only having 23 coming into tonight. Hansbrough has 3 assists after only having 14 coming into tonight.
9:25 PM: Lawson and McClinton are staging a little duel here. McClinton has equaled his number with 33 points tonight. Miami will have the ball down 64-63 with 1:43 left when they come back from a timeout.
9:27 PM: Hansbrough just drew a big charge on Asbury. UNC’s ball with 44.3 seconds left (8.3 second differential) up by 1. Both teams are have a way to get to the bonus not that it would come into play on this possession.
9:30 PM: Big 3 by Lawson gives UNC a 4-point lead. I’m starting to wonder if he isn’t the MVP of this UNC team. I’d have a hard time giving Hansbrough ACC POY over Jeff Teague or Lawson right now.
9:35 PM: It’s only fitting that Lawson seals the game with a pair of free throws. I think this 3-game stretch should make a pretty good case for Miami to get a NCAA bid. A 27-point win over Wake Forest, an OT loss at Duke, and a 4-point loss to UNC without Collins.
9:40 PM: I’ll be back in a bit to cover to USC–Arizona State game, which start at 10.
10:10 PM: And we’re underway in Tempe. I was about to make a joke about how the Sun Devil fans have dressed up as empty seats, but the announcers are estimating a total turnout of 9,000-10,000 in the 14,198 seat Wells Fargo Arena. Even with the All-Star game nearby in Phoenix, ASU should be able to pull more than that for a rival like USC.
10:15 PM: This is my first time watching either of these two teams live this year other than the last minute of ASU’s win over UCLA on Thursday night. There are a lot of big names on these teams given their ranking/records.
10:30 PM: James Harden gets a lay-up (his first shot attempt) to tie it at 8 at the 11:30 mark. For a guy who is projected as a lottery pick he is really passive at a level he should be able to dominate. Jeff Pendergraph is a much better passer than I expected. He already has 3 assists with 9 minutes left in the first half.
10:50 PM: Arizona State goes into halftime with a 29-20 lead off a 10-2 run to close the first half. Pendergraph leads all scorers with 10 points. Harden still has only taken 1 shot. Demar DeRozan leads the Trojans with 7 points.
11:10 PM: ASU is holding onto a 33-30 lead. O.J. Mayo sighting. Mayo, fresh off his runner-up performance at G-E-I-C-O, has been better than I expected as a rookie. It’s nice of him to show up for his old team. I would say his alma mater, but I doubt that he went to class that much or will graduate from USC any time soon. Pretty routine interview. He misses USC, Tim Floyd was a great coach, and the Trojans are playing well. Yada yada yada. . .
11:30 PM: ASU has opened up a 48-40 lead with 7:08 left and Floyd calls a timeout. Harden is finally asserting himself and the Sun Devils are on an 11-2 run.
11:40 PM: Big finish by DeRozan cuts the lead to 6 with 3:50 left. He has a chance to cut it to 5 at the FT line after the timeout. To be honest, neither of these teams have impressed me. I think ASU can make it to the Sweet 16 and possibly Elite 8 if things fall right for them, but I just can’t see them beating the top ACC or Big East teams this year.
11:50 PM: ASU is hanging onto a 57-51 lead with 1:38 left after DeRozan throws down a ridiculous follow-up dunk. I guess that’s why he’s a NBA prospect because the rest of his game doesn’t really reflect it.
11:55 PM: Big block by Harden on Daniel Hackett. The Trojans get lucky when ASU misses the FTs. Hacket is called for a charge and Tim Floyd explodes. I’m pretty sure this is the 2nd time I have seen him explode at a really inopportune time for his team. It’s still a 6-point game with 47.9 seconds left. Some Sun Devil security finally has to escort him off the court. Looking at the replay, I think Floyd may have been right about the call, but it was an awful decision to get T’d up with the game still in the balance. The 4 FTs and possession should just about do it here. ASU makes 3 of 4 to go up 60-51 with 42.2 seconds left. Great job by Fox Sports showing the 2 officials making different calls on the same play with both of them having a good view.
Midnight: Well it looks like that is it as ASU pulls out the tough win. It’s been an interesting 11 hours minus my 90 minute hiatus. Actually the 90 minute hiatus was probably the most interesting part of my day. I hope you enjoyed it. Check back with us tomorrow for more posts. We’ll have a preview of the big Pittsburgh-UConn game tomorrow and may even do a live blog.