Some interesting RTC stories from the last couple of nights. RTC stories – as in actual “rushing the court” stories, as opposed to the normal tripe that we throw on here every day.
First, let’s re-visit the amazing Penn St. comeback win over Illinois Thursday night (let’s also forget about today’s result in Iowa City). We mentioned in our ATB that night that PSU’s RTC was “quick. No hesitation. Straight to the middle of the floor. Immediate bedlam.” It was an awesome scene, as shown below.
But apparently admidst all the chaos, Penn St. star Talor Battle, he of the game-winning floater, got taken out, as in knocked to the floor, by the throng of people rushing onto the court. Someone snapped a photo immediately prior to the student immersion of the court into a maelstrom of sweaty whiteness, and they captured this guy grabbing Battle as the bedlam began.
Very soon thereafter, Battle was knocked on his back, and the author of this PSU hoops blog, Crispin and Cream, starting taking some heat for representng the closest visual evidence of assault/battery while Battle was still standing. Andy Katz even mentioned the scene on his blog on Friday. So last night, he responded with a Zapruder-esque recount of his steps throughout the RTC process, including detailed exculpatory evidence as to how he could not have possibly been the reason that Battle fell down. Read on:
I’m asking you all to watch the ESPN evidence for yourself in super slow motion if you can and make your own analysis. Don’t watch Battle or me, watch everyone else. As soon as our scene occurs, while Battle’s falling, you’ll see another black guy in a black jacket to Battle’s right rising up. He was getting up from his fall, but he wasn’t the one who started it all. The real culprit has yet to make his appearance.
OJ? Hey, we couldn’t tell a damn thing from that video, but there’s one quote that keeps ringing in our heads here. Methinks thou doth protest too much. Or the Shaggy song, whichever.
There was actually one other RTC-related story, and this one comes from the Ivy League of all places! An RTC when Cornell clinched its second consecutive NCAA bid last night led to a computer getting smashed and a scoring error that resulted in the final score getting changed well after the fact. Take it easy out there, RTCers!