One of the very best things about college sports other than the cheerleaders and the dance teams are the mascots.  And while you’ll never, ever see a cute blonde pixie getting in the face of a competitor, it’s fairly common for mascots to get involved in tomfoolery and hijinks.  Case in point: last night at the WAC Tournament with seven seconds left in a one-pt game, Utah St.’s “Big Blue” confronted New Mexico St.’s “Pistol Pete” and ripped off his mustache, leading to a row during a timeout in the middle of the court.  From the AP report:

During a timeout with 7 seconds left and New Mexico State leading 70-69, Utah State’s mascot, “Big Blue” the bull, confronted New Mexico State’s “Pistol Pete” cowboy mascot and ripped off his fake mustache. The cowboy then chased the bull to halfcourt, jumped on his back and tried unsuccessfully to pull him to the floor. “Pistol Pete” then started to try to choke his rival before retreating to his end of the court. Several newspaper photographers covering the game said they heard a man in a Nevada shirt offer the Utah State mascot $100 to go grab the mustache. The man confirmed to The Associated Press that was true and that he paid the mascot the $100, but declined to provide his name. He said he did not expect New Mexico State’s “Pistol Pete” to respond the way he did.

This is phenomenal.  Who is this nefarious Nevada fan peeling off hundies like he was PacMan over at Solid Platinum?  And how perfect was his timing in that situation – can you imagine if Big Blue had gotten his team – down one point at the time – a tech for his aggression?  Stew Morrill probably would have gored Big Blue with his own horns.

If anyone finds a video of this, send it along and we’ll put it up.

One day away!

Bubble Situation
31 Automatic Bids
27 Lock At-Large Spots
7 Open Bubble Spots for Saint Mary’s, Auburn, Arizona, South Carolina, New Mexico, Creighton, San Diego State, USC, Michigan, Minnesota, Penn State, Maryland, UNLV.

Next Four In: San Diego State, Minnesota, Michigan, Dayton
Last Four In: Penn State, Maryland, Creighton, Arizona
Last Four Out: Saint Mary’s, New Mexico, South Carolina, USC
Next Four Out: Auburn, Virginia Tech, UNLV, Providence

Automatic bids: Binghamton, Temple, North Carolina, East Tennessee State, Missouri, Louisville, Portland State, Radford, Michigan State, Cal State Northridge, VCU, Memphis, Cleveland State, Cornell, Siena, Buffalo, Morgan State, Northern Iowa, Utah, Robert Morris, Morehead State, Arizona State, American, LSU, Chattanooga, Stephen F. Austin, Alabama State, North Dakota State, Western Kentucky, Gonzaga, Utah State.

Bids per conference: Big Ten (8), ACC (7), Big East (7), Big 12 (6), Pac-10 (5), Atlantic 10 (3), Mountain West (3), SEC (2), Missouri Valley (2), Horizon (2).

Next update: Sunday morning.
Last update: Sunday afternoon.

Welcome back to the weekend edition of Boom Goes the Dynamite. First off I’d like to commend rtmsf for his strong work on yesterday’s BGtD. You guys really have no idea how exhausting it is doing a full day’s worth of this is and he managed to do it with only a short break although it almost caused me to give up working on the site after being forced to endure the American–Holy Cross game yesterday. As he outlined in his After the Buzzer post last night/this morning, there are 12 conference championship games today. For the sake of maintaining our sanity and having enough energy in the tank for our huge March Madness preview, we’ll be taking multiple shifts but we promise to coordinate it so you won’t miss anything during our handoffs.

6:00 AM: Yes. That’s actually the time I’m starting this thanks to a “short nap” that ended up going from 9 PM to 5 AM. Obviously my posts will be infrequent in the early morning hours, but I’ll be passing along some news and links to you before the games start at 11 AM. The New York Times has been stepping it up with their college sports blog “The Quad” recently and has an interesting post on Louisville‘s Terrence Williams and his pre-game ritual of the giving himself a pep talk during the national anthem. Before anybody thinks this might be a Chris Jackson Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf situation, it should be noted that Williams actually stands during the anthem and is supposedly talking about family members that he has lost and asking that everyone on the court avoids injuries. Of course, we can’t verify this, but if we have any lip-readers in our vast legion of RTC readers, we would love hear your take on this particularly if you have seen this is in person.

7:00 AM: Before I head out for a few minutes to take care of some errands like stocking up on groceries for the coming storm where I probably won’t leave my apartment for 3 weeks. I thought I would pass along one of my favorite things we are doing at RTC right now. We enlisted the help of our correspondents and got them to send us their favorite March memories. We narrowed down the submissions to the 16 best entries and are counting down to #1, which will be revealed on Wednesday (the day before the tournament starts). I’d encourage you to check out the entries we have so far and keep on coming back throughout the day to see what they selected as their favorite March memories and then chime in with your memories on those moments.

8:45 AM: Ok. False alarm on that grocery run. Apparently Costco doesn’t open until 9:30 so after this post I’ll be on a short break. So today’s RTC East breakfast is brought to you by Flour Bakery and consists of their Bobby Flay-slaying “Sticky Buns” and a twice-baked brioche. Here’s a quick run-down of the games (title game in red–there’s a lot of red) that I will be focusing on today:

Early Games

• UMBC vs. Binghamton at 11 AM on ESPN2 for the America East title
• Memphis vs. #3 Tulsa at 11:35 AM on CBS for the Conference USA title

Afternoon Games

• Mississippi State vs. #16 LSU at 1 PM on ESPN2 and Raycom in the SEC semifinals
• #6 Michigan State vs. Ohio State at 1:30 PM on CBS in the Big 10 semifinals
• #1 UNC vs. #22 FSU at 1:30 PM on ESPN and Raycom in the ACC semifinals
• Tennessee vs. Auburn at 3 PM on ESPN2 and Raycom in the SEC semifinals
• Maryland vs. #8 Duke at 3:30 PM on ESPN and Raycom in the ACC semifinals
• #25 Illinois vs. #24 Purdue at 4 PM on CBS in the Big 10 semifinals

Evening Games

• #23 Arizona State vs. USC at 6 PM on CBS for the Pac-10 title
• Baylor vs. #15 Missouri at 6 PM on ESPN for the Big 12 title
• Temple vs. Duquesne at 6 PM on ESPN2 for the Atlantic 10 title

Late Night Games

• San Diego State vs. Utah at 7 PM on Versus for the Moutain West title
• Morgan State vs. Norfolk State at 7 PM on ESPNU for the MEAC title (Periodic score updates for this one)
  
• Buffalo vs. Akron at 8 PM on ESPN2 for the MAC title
• #5 Louisville vs. #20 Syracuse at 9 PM on ESPN for the Big East title
• Jackson State vs. Alabama State at 9 PM on ESPNU for the SWAC title (Periodic score updates for this one)
• Utah State vs. Nevada at 10 PM on ESPN2 for the WAC title
• Cal State-Northridge vs. Pacific at 11:59 PM on ESPN2 for the Big West title (This one is questionable)

10:55 AM: Ok. I’m back from my extended Costco run and have enough food to last me through the week. A quick summary on the early games. In the America East, Binghamton is a 5-6 point favorite (depending on your gambling establishment of choice). Honestly, I’m surprised that they aren’t bigger favorites since they come in at 22-8 while UMBC comes in 15-16 and the game is at Binghamton. It could be interesting though as they split the season series in the regular season with Binghamton winning the last game of the regular season at home against UMBC 71-51. I’m guessing the America East commissioner is rooting for UMBC to avoid the embarrassment of the CBS announcers having to explain why the conference’s regular season leading scorer (D.J Rivera) was left off the all-conference team. In Conference USA, Memphis is a 14-point favorite against Tulsa. Memphis might be playing for a #1 seed even with their ridiculously easy schedule. We’re hoping this game is more like the first time they met (a 55-54 Memphis win) rather the last time they met (a 63-37 Memphis win). I have a sneaking suspicion that it is going to be more like the latter, but we’ll be following it anyways to get a last look at Memphis before CBS’s new Billy Packer rips the NCAA selection committee for putting them over a Big East team.

Read the rest of this entry »

RTC asked its legion of correspondents, charlatans, sycophants, toadies and other hangers-on to send us their very favorite March Madness memory,  something that had a visceral effect on who they are as a person and college basketball fan today.  Not surprisingly, many of the submissions were excellent and if you’re not fired up reading them, then you need to head back over to PerezHilton for the rest of this month.  We’ve chosen the sixteen best, and we’ll be counting them down over the next two weeks as we approach the 2009 NCAA Tournament.

The Mason Miracle (submitted by Ryan Kish of George Mason Basketball)

Will Thomas Dunked His Way to the Four

I’ll have to take the homer pick here, as a I do blog about George Mason.  The 2006 Final Four run by the Patriots shocked everyone and it wasn’t just the fact that they unseated some historic programs (Michigan St, UNC and UConn) but rather how they accomplished it.  The Patriots took down a UConn squad that was littered with NBA prospects by going right into the teeth of the Husky front court.  Not by shooting a barrage of hail mary three-pointers but by using their undersized forwards to take the Huskies on right at the chokepoint.  Mason inspired many basketball fans by showing that having superb talent doesn’t always guarantee victory and five guys playing together with unity and determination can win under any circumstance. The victory was not just for Mason but for all the mid-majors who thought they were not given enough respect around the NCAA and the media.  ‘If Mason can do it, why can’t we’, is now the battle cry on many mid-major campuses and everyone wonders  each year: who will be the next George Mason?

Answer: there won’t be one.

Overview.  What a day.  By our count, there were eleven conference tournament games today that went down to the final minute where either team had a realistic shot to win.  We’re proud to say that we saw most of those games and recorded it for all posterity over at our daily journal of hoopsography, Boom Goes the Dynamite.  So without rehashing everything that we transcribed over there, let’s take a look at some of the key storylines that we’re keeping an eye on going into Championship Saturday.

Get Your Voodoo Dolls Out.  These are the teams that Bubble Nation despises right now because these are the guys still standing in their conference tourneys that are in position to take away ‘their’ much-more-deserving spot in the field of 65.  So if you’re a fan of one of the below teams and you feel a prickly feeling tomorrow in your thigh emanating from Omaha, Las Cruces, Gainesville, Providence, et al, you’ll know why.

• USC. The Trojans entered the Pac-10 Tourney in nobody’s field of 65.  With good reason, they faltered down the stretch, losing six of their last nine and looking listless throughout much of the season.  And now, after defeating crosstown rival UCLA tonight, they’re 40 minutes away from an automatic bid playing a team in their hometown whom they split with on the season.
• Temple/Duquesne.  The A10 has already guaranteed that somebody will be disappointed on Sunday because neither of these two teams were on anybody’s board either.  Temple was at least in the conversation, but Duquesne has come out of nowhere, upsetting Dayton today to sit one game away from an auto-bid.
• Baylor. We discussed Baylor a little today in the BGTD, but obviously with a 5-11 Big 12 record, they’re not anywhere near the bubble.  Yet, they’ll play Missouri tomorrow for an automatic bid, and given how they seem to have their mojo back after a major half-season swoon, we wouldn’t be surprised to crown Baylor as this year’s Georgia tomorrow in Oklahoma City.
• San Diego St. Well, at least SDSU is already on the bubble.  Their hard-fought win over BYU tonight ensured that they too will have a chance tomorrow to take the decision out of the NCAA Selection Cmte’s hands.  The Aztecs split their two games with Utah, who was already ensured a bid either way.  SDSU will feel the wrath of Bubble Nation on them tomorrow.
• Mississippi St./Auburn – MSU defeated South Carolina and Auburn beat Florida today to move into the semifinals of the SEC Tournament, which means that half of the SEC semifinalists are teams that probably aren’t going to get in without an auto-bid.  The SEC is so muddled that either of these teams can beat LSU or Tennessee (respectively) and get a shot on Sunday for the guaranteed invite.
• Maryland – This one is less likely considering that Maryland will probably have to beat Duke and Carolina to win the auto-bid, but merely beating Duke would move the Terps from bubble to lock status.  The voodoo dolls have a lot of work to do tomorrow.

Championship Saturday.  Twelve automatic bids will be earned tomorrow.  Her’e’s a brief primer on each.

• America East – (6) UMBC @ (1) Binghamton.  UMBC got pounded at Binghamton a couple of weeks ago, and the Bearcats have 12 of 13 coming into tomorrow.  We’d expect Tony Kornheiser to be a happy man tomorrow, celebrating Binghamton’s first ever trip to the NCAAs.
• Atlantic 10 – (7) Duquesne vs. (4) Temple.  Just like last season, Temple is coming on strong at the end of the year, having won 9 of 11 coming into this game.  Temple defeated Duquesne in their only meeting in Pittsburgh earlier this year, and we expect to see the same in AC tomorrow.
• Big 12 – (3) Missouri vs. (9) Baylor.  Baylor has won three in a row for the first time since December, and we’ve noticed that they have some of their swagger back this weekend.  As well as Mizzou has played this year, Baylor has more “big game” postseason experience, so we’re going with the Bears in the upset here.
• Big East – (6) Syracuse vs. (1) Louisville.  For the Cuse’s sake, they’d better hope they lose tomorrow night.  The last time they had a great BE Tourney run like this in 2006, Texas A&M ran them off the court in their first round NCAA game because they had nothing left in the tank.  We think that SU’s tired legs catch up to them and Louisville gets a #1 seed with tomorrow’s Big East title.
• Big West – (3) Pacific vs. (1) CS-Northridge.  These two teams are essentially even, but Pacific beat CSN twice already this year, and it’s difficult to beat a team three times, so we’ll go with Northridge.
• Conference USA – (2) Tulsa vs. (1) Memphis.  Yeah, we’re going to go against the team that’s won sixty league games in a row.  Playing at home.  Sure.
• MAC – (5) Akron vs. (3) Buffalo.  These two teams knocked off the top two seeds today in the semifinal round, and they split during the regular season.  We like Buffalo because they darn near beat UConn back in December.  That’s as good a reason as any.
• MEAC – (3) Norfolk St. vs. (1) Morgan St. Todd Bozeman’s Morgan crew is the class of this conference and will earn its first NCAA bid tomorrow.
• Mountain West – (4) San Diego St. vs. (2) Utah.  The Utes comfortable beat SDSU at home, but the Aztecs are playing with a purpose right now.  Tossup game, but we like Utah to eke one out in Vegas.
• Pac-10 – (6) USC vs. (4) Arizona St. USC has looked like a different team in this conference tournament so far, with Demar DeRozan suddenly playing the superstar he was projected to be.  We like the hometown team here stealing an NCAA spot from someone else.
• SWAC – (2) Jackson St. vs. (1) Alabama St. Jackson St. is the hotter team, having won 13 of their last 14, including a win a few weeks ago against ASU.
• WAC – (1) Utah St. @ (2) Nevada. This should be an excellent game – the prohibitive favorite playing essentially a road game for the automatic bid.  They split their games with each team winning at home, and we think Nevada will ride its home crowd to another win here.  The question is whether Utah St. at 29-5 (16-3) would be an at-large?  Answer: probably.

A Few Other Thoughts.

• ACC – The call that gave the victory to Carolina was yet another late-game example of the ACC powers-that-be protecting their own, and we don’t know what BC was thinking when they decided to shoot a 28-footer to beat Duke instead of driving to the rim.  Maryland has had a nice run, but it will end tomorrow.  Duke-Carolina Part 3 is imminent on Sunday.
• Big Ten – Ohio St. will probably hang with Michigan St. for a while, but ultimately will fold.  The Purdue-Illinois game should be really good, though.  Illinois took both prior games but Robbie Hummell missed the last one.  We like Purdue to pull off a close one here.
• SEC – Auburn is one of the hottest teams around now, having won nine of its last ten games.  We like the Tigers to outlast Tennessee tomorrow to face LSU in the finals on Sunday.

Finally, Welcome American to the Dance…  (15 down, 50 to go…).

#15 – American (24-7, 13-1).  American earned its second consecutive trip to the NCAAs with its easy win today over Holy Cross, 73-57.  Jeff Jones’ squad got 24 from star guard and Tourney MVP Garrison Carr, but it was their defense that once again shut down a conference foe (holding HC to 32% shooting).

Projected Seed: #15

Something to Remember: American got bombed by Oklahoma, Georgetown and Maryland this year, but it’s their defense that should have high seeds concerned.  They have the 24th best defensive efficiency, but they likely don’t have enough offense to run with the big dogs unless they catch a really poor offensive team on an off night.

On Tap Tomorrow.   Be sure to check in with us tomorrow, as we’ll be back with BGTD all day, covering the dozen auto-bids plus the four other conferences that don’t finish up until Sunday.  The three games that have us most excited on Championship Saturday?  Louisville-Syracuse, Illinois-Purdue and Utah St.-Nevada.  See you then.

Kevin McCarthy of Parsing the WAC and Sam Wasson of bleedCrimson.net are the RTC correspondents for the WAC.

Note: Rush the Court will be live-blogging tonight’s WAC Semifinals, which starts at 8:30 PM ET.

The quarterfinals of the 2009 WAC Tournament are in the books and the league’s top two seeded teams–Utah State and Nevada–advanced. The #3 and #4 seeds Idaho and Boise State? Not nearly as fortunate. Each session brought its own upset as in the tournament’s first game #5 seed New Mexico State upended #4 seed Boise State. The Broncos had won the first two meetings of the season and were looking to make it three straight and looked to be off to a good start when they built a 30-20 lead midway through the first half. However, New Mexico State found its shot and took a 38-36 lead into the break. Boise State tied the game at 38 apiece less than a minute into the game after a pair of made free throws but that’s as close as they would get the rest of the way. Spurred by an 8-0 run, New Mexico State seized control of the game and timely free throws and a second half barrage of three pointers by junior guard Jonathan Gibson helped the Aggies to advance to the semifinals. Gibson finished with a team high 22 points for the Aggies. Boise State was led by Mark Sanchez who scored a game high 25 points. In all four Aggies finished with double figures in scoring while three Broncos achieved that mark. Boise State finishes the season at 19-12 and will await their postseason fate. The Aggies improve to 17-14 and will face top seed Utah State at 6:00 p.m. PT.

In the first session’s second game the regular season champion Utah State took on #9 seed Fresno State. Most Aggie fans approached this game with a bit of guarded optimism not normally seen in a 1 vs. 9 matchup. However, there was due cause for their concern as Fresno State had pushed Utah State to the brink in both regular season meetings. The Bulldogs had lost by just four in the always tough Dee Glenn Smith Spectrum in Logan and then later took Utah State to overtime before eventually losing. After Fresno State escaped the 8/9 play-in game against Hawai’i, they looked to spring the upset. Unfortunately for the Bulldogs, the Aggies had different plans. Utah State jumped out to a 16-3 lead and never looked back. Utah State hit a season high 13 three pointers en route to an 85-68 victory. Utah State’s Stavon Williams finished with 22 points on 8-11 shooting including 6-8 from three point distance. Gary Wilkinson and Jared Quayle each pitched in 18 for the Aggies. Fresno State had four players reach double figures led by freshman Paul George with 16. Senior Dwight O’Neil, playing in his final game scored 14 points. Utah State rekindles their rivalry with New Mexico State in the first semifinal game at 6:00 p.m. PT.

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Toppers Return to The Dance
As we predicted last time around, Western Kentucky will represent the Sun Belt Conference in the Big dance this year. This was no surprise to avid Belt followers. However, what was a surprise was the opponent they faced in the finals – South Alabama.

South Alabama came into the tournament as the sixth seed, and slid into the finals after winning their first two games by a combined total of five points. One of their opponents was Troy, who’s magical run came to a close by just three points. Not that they didn’t have their fair share of chances to get the win themselves. Trojan guard Michael Vogler missed the front end of a one-and-one and then two 3-point tries in the final 17 seconds as Troy tried to tie the game.
Ironically, South Alabama’s last leg into the final game came with little difficulty when they knocked off  Arkansas Little-Rock, a team that also struggled to find its range, by ten points. The Trojans had no answer for the loss of Moore, their top scorer, and it showed, as they went 16-61 from the floor on the night. However, South Alabama would not be so fortunate against WKU in the finals.

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Hello hoops fans, and welcome to our first weekday version of your favorite semi-live journal, Boom Goes the Dynamite.  We’re still feeling the effects of that six-overtime Goliath of a game last night, but we’re caffeinated and ready to rock with you all day while we move through what is traditionally the best day of the conference tournament weekend.  It’ll be hard to top what we saw yesterday, though.  Here are a few of the games you should be tracking; as you can see, today is an absolute blockbuster:

• ACC – UNC vs. Virginia Tech – Noon, Maryland vs. Wake Forest – 7pm, Duke vs. BC, 9:30pm
• Patriot – American vs. Holy Cross – 4:45pm
• Big 10 – Michigan St. vs. Minnesota – Noon, Illinois vs. Michigan – 6:30pm, Purdue vs. Penn St. – 9pm
• Big East – Louisville vs. Villanova – 7pm, Syracuse vs. West Virginia – 9pm
• Big 12 – Baylor vs. Texas – 7pm, Oklahoma St. vs. Missouri – 9:30pm
• Mountain West – San Diego St. vs. BYU – 9pm
• Pac-10 – Arizona St. vs. Washington – 9pm, USC vs. UCLA – 11:30pm
• SEC – Florida vs. Auburn – 9:45pm

Another couple of PSAs before we get started.  Be sure to check the site throughout the weekend, as we’ll be doing these BGTDs each day, in addition to a revised bracketology on both Saturday and Sunday, all leading to a liveblogging of the Selection Show on Sunday.  We’ll also be putting up the information for RTC’s Second Annual Bracket Challenge later this afternoon.

12:20 pm. Let’s get started here.  UNC looks flat so far against Virginia Tech, and they should, given that Ty Lawson is over on the bench sitting next to Roy Williams.  He is dressed, though, so it wouldn’t surprise us if his Big Toe makes an appearance.  That crafty Roy – always using the element of surprise.  Or something like that.

12:27 pm.  Over at the Big Ten, Minnesota is leading Michigan State 22-20 in a high-scoring game.  Yes, we said high-scoring and Big Ten in the same sentence.  Wow, ESPN is already re-showing the Syracuse-UConn game on ESPN Classic.  Tivo time.  If these two games get worthless, we’re definitely moving back over there.

12:33 pm. They’re really hyping that game from last night – looks like they’re going to show the whole thing on ESPNU at 3pm.  Getting back to business here, Virginia Tech looks poised right now, playing like a team that wants to keep playing in March should be playing.  Carolina looks a little flat, but the question will be whether they can still make a patented run with Lawson sitting.

12:42 pm. Most of the ACC people are annoyed with the conference tournament being in Atlanta this year, but we think it’s refreshing that it’s not in the same old tired venue of Greensboro or Charlotte again.  The home-state advantage that Carolina gets in those two building is ridiculous.  Speaking of advantage, it looked like UNC was about to make a run until Va Tech came down and hit two consecutive threes.  Ed Davis is going to be a player someday.  He has really nice touch around the rim, and his per-40 rebounding average is in the 15 rpg territory!

Read the rest of this entry »

RTC asked its legion of correspondents, charlatans, sycophants, toadies and other hangers-on to send us their very favorite March Madness memory,  something that had a visceral effect on who they are as a person and college basketball fan today.  Not surprisingly, many of the submissions were excellent and if you’re not fired up reading them, then you need to head back over to PerezHilton for the rest of this month.  We’ve chosen the sixteen best, and we’ll be counting them down over the next two weeks as we approach the 2009 NCAA Tournament.

Your School, Your Time (submitted by Damon Lewis of the Horizon League Network)

Growing up I always thought of myself as a big time college basketball fan.  I remember feeling very fortunate that my school always held half-days on the first Thursday-Friday of March Madness.  Sure, it was pure coincidence, but I liked to think that it was somehow a sign that we were supposed to be watching the games, and that’s exactly what I did.  It wasn’t until I went to college at Butler that I learned what March Madness was truly all about.  After having collected 25 wins in 2001-2002, and falling victim to a rage-tastic NCAA snub, the Bulldogs responded the following season with 25 more wins, and this time an at-large bid into the Big Dance.  Birmingham, Alabama was the site, Mississippi State was the draw, and there was no question I’d be attending.  The first step was figuring out “how” and the second step was figuring out “when” – as many of my friends and I had a fraternity formal scheduled for the exact same weekend.  It didn’t take long for the plans to come together, however.  We’d leave Friday morning, and 8 hours later we’d be in Birmingham, just in time to be able to watch a potential 2nd-round opponent, the Louisville Cardinals.  After the game, we’d drive straight back and attend our formal the next night on a few hours of sleep.  Just another day in the life of a college kid, right?

Butler Rode Cornette & Co. to the Second Weekend (photo credit: enquirer.com)

All went as planned.  Myself and 3 others drove all day on Friday, constantly going over why we thought our Bulldogs (not Mississippi State’s) would be victorious.  We tried to convince ourselves all afternoon that we’d be marching on, but none of us really believed it.  We were just happy to be able to escape the cold air of Indianapolis for a day.  Soon enough we arrived, and caught a glimpse of why Louisville was so feared that season (02-03).  They hammered Austin Peay in the first game of the night session, ending the Governors’ season.  As that game ended, the butterflies really started to build.  I was at an NCAA Tournament game, and not to just watch and enjoy the action.  I was there for MY team.  And I can tell you, win or lose, there’s nothing like being able to root for your team at the NCAA Tournament.  When you’re a heavy underdog, playing a team from the SEC, in SEC country, there’s something about feeling that momentum build as David is taking its best shots at Goliath.

As tip-time neared, everything that had been absorbed from watching Butler for an entire season began racing through my brain.  They needed to shoot well from the perimeter, stay out of foul trouble, and most importantly – control the tempo.  That Butler squad enjoyed grinding out possessions, and they were damn good at it.  At the same time, everything that had been absorbed from that entire week – pundits predicting a massive Mississippi State victory for being seeded too low as a #5 – also came rushing to the front of my brain.  It was a different, unsettling feeling, one that I haven’t felt about any Butler basketball team ever since.  The game took shape – painfully slow – just the type that Butler wanted.  There were punches, counter-punches, and counter-counter-punches, all spread VERY far and wide across both 20-minute halves.  Slowly, the “neutral” fans began to get on Butler’s bandwagon, and before anyone knew it, the game was still up for grabs with just seconds remaining.  Then this happened…

That feeling is one that I’ll never, ever forget.  They had done it, and David had advanced to the Round of 32.  Other friends of mine stayed in Birmingham.  They called their dates to our fraternity formal and cancelled on them, but it was understandable given the circumstances.  Our small crew of four hopped back in the car and drove all night up I-65 back to Indianapolis.  It was the fastest eight hours I’ve ever spent in a car.  We went to our formal on Saturday night, and of course the victory was all anyone could talk about.  A fun time was had by all, but I don’t remember all that much of it.  I was already thinking about Sunday’s showdown with Louisville.  Combine that with the lack of sleep and an excessive amount of malted hops, and, well, you get the picture.  Everyone woke up early Sunday morning and headed back to campus to see if our classmates had one more unthinkable performance in them.  This is what we saw…

Needless to say, the scene on campus was unreal.  Everyone ran out of their housing units as soon as the final buzzer sounded, and it was pandemonium in the streets.  Sure, there were only a couple-thousand out there, but that was easily over half the campus!  To this day, I think about that 48-hour period every time March rolls around.  And, honestly, I usually end up telling this story to someone, whether they’ve heard it already or not.  I’ve been to several of Butler’s NCAA Tournament games since that weekend, but the sequel is never, EVER as good as the original.  That is, unless the latest sequel involves a run to the Elite 8 (or beyond) in the next couple weeks…

Six OTs.  Syracuse 127, Connecticut 117 (6OT). Every once in a while there’s a game where as you’re watching it you just know something amazing is going to happen.  Maybe it’s the bounce the players have on the court or the electricity in the air of the crowd.   Maybe it’s the way a seven-foot-three giant outhustles a guy half his size for a loose ball on the floor, or the  way a shooter comes hard off a curl to drill a 28-footer like it was a floater in the lane.  It’s unclear how you know what you know, but you know that you’re witnessing something special, and you’re not alone – everyone in the joint can sense it, and the fans watching from home feel it too.  There are only a few games in our personal history that we can remember having that sensation.  The Laettner game was one – we realized it when UK started nailing threes all over the place to erase the 12-pt Duke lead in the blink of an eye.  The Arizona-Gonzaga second round game in 2003 was another.  Tonight’s Syracuse-UConn game was the latest.

Games like this, you don’t just watch.  All the senses are engaged.  You breathe them.  You taste them.  Even better, these games breathe you.  They inhale the collective emotions and anxieties of everyone in the building, and like a living organism, emit a beautiful poetry of synaptic orgasmica. The final game time was just shy of four hours (an absurd length for a hoops game), but the second half and OTs felt like about fifteen minutes.  It’s like nestling up with a loved one or stumbling across your favorite movie on TNT.  Time no longer matters.  That’s how you know.  Our Big East correspondent, Rob Dauster, was live-blogging this game from his Blackberry inside MSG tonight, and reading through his posts is like reading the wild scribblings of a man reaching hoops nirvana (and exhaustion).  There was one post that he made that absolutely crystallized this game for everyone tonight – “Every single person is standing in this gym.”  Because that’s what it comes down to: the crowd, the players, the gym – all in unison, all making magic happen.  For what it’s worth, Rob, every single person at home was standing too.

Now let’s get to the game itself.  Obviously, we’ve been saying all year that Syracuse has F4 talent.  The problem has been that they haven’t been able to maximize that talent, but the Orange are now showing signs that they’re starting to figure it out.  This SU team has a swagger that we haven’t seen since the G-Mac days, but the key difference is that Jonny Flynn, Eric Devendorf, Paul Harris, Arinze Onuaku and Andy Rautins are far more talented than McNamara’s last two teams.  We fully expect the Orange to have nothing left in the tank for WVU tomorrow night, but we’d be utterly shocked if this team laid an egg in next week’s NCAAs.  The Cuse plays hard, and we just have a sneaky suspicion this year that they’re going to make some noise in this year’s Tourney (Flynn’s Charles Smith impression notwithstanding).

As for UConn, they had three possessions in the first five OTs to win the game, and each time they dribbled the ball around and forced up some horrible shot.  Even the play that gave them the tie to send it to OT before Devendorf’s absurd three at the end of regulation was off of a broken play.  This is indicative of the same problem that has plagued this group of Huskies since they got to Storrs – they’re just not clutch.  Here we are discussing a group of juniors that spent several weeks at #1 this year, and they’ve yet to win a postseason game.  Not one!  Husky fans are going to get angry at us and declare that they were able to win some meaningless game against Gonzaga or whoever during the regular season… but they’re UConn, an elite program, and they should know better than that.  Legacies are built in March (that’s how Calhoun built his), and this group of players remains suspect until they prove once and for all that they can play championship level basketball in tournament formats.  We’re still waiting on it.

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