Tonight’s Lede. Big East Earns Two Road Wins in SEC/Big East Challenge.
The Length of Kentucky Frustated St. John's to the Tune of 18 Blocks (LHL/P. Alcala)
The first of the three-night SEC/Big East Challenge is in the books, and at least at this point, the Big East appears to have the upper hand. After Georgetown and Providence earned road wins at Alabama and South Carolina that neither was expected to achieve, the conferences are tied at 2-2 going into Friday night’s quadruple-header. Kentucky and Ole Miss saved face for the SEC with two wins of its own, but the Rebels barely survived at DePaul and UK was a heavy favorite over St. John’s. With three Big East schools hosting games on Friday night, and all three positioned as significant favorites, the league will be in a great spot to take a commanding lead in the 12-game challenge heading into Saturday’s final four games. Can the SEC simply send Kentucky’s long-armed corps of flyswatters to each Big East arena instead?
Your Watercooler Moment. Hollis If Ya Hear Me!
Georgetown’s Hollis Thompson came through with a big-time play on the road at Alabama tonight when many lesser teams and players would have crumbled under the pressure. After methodically imposing its defensive will on the Crimson Tide for 38 minutes to take a nine-point lead with a little over two minutes remaining, Alabama went on a 10-0 run behind its stars JaMychal Green and Tony Mitchell to take a one-point advantage into Georgetown’s final possession. As the video above shows, Jason Clark, a Thursday All-American, dribble handed off to Thompson on the right side and he drained the long three for the win, ending Alabama’s 24-game home winning streak (fourth longest in the nation). The Hoyas are playing better than anyone could have anticipated and have now defeated two top-15 teams (Memphis as well) while giving another (Kansas) all it wanted. Credit is deserving to John Thompson, III, who has fashioned another really good team after losing his stellar backcourt of Chris Wright and Austin Freeman to graduation last season.
Tonight’s Lede. Big Ten Does It Again. Day two of the ACC/Big Ten Challenge finished in the same way as the first — with a Big Ten beatdown. The midwestern-based conference rode wins from Michigan State and Minnesota at home along with Penn State and Indiana on the road, to notch another 4-2 night and win the event convincingly, 8-4. Four of those eight victories this year came on ACC hardwood, showing that Big Ten teams can pick up victories in hostile environments regardless of location. It’s difficult to draw too much from late November events like these, but the eye and sniff test in watching pieces of the twelve games over the last two nights is highly suggestive that the Big Ten appears to go seven or eight teams deep this year for NCAA Tournament consideration, while the ACC looks to be in the neighborhood of five or six. As our columnist Evan Jacoby wrote in Night Line last night, the Big Ten has unquestionably earned the right to hold the mantle as the top conference in college basketball a few weeks into the season. The ACC appears to be in the mid-pack, perhaps as high as third but also maybe the worst of the five power conferences (the Pac-12 has some work to do to earn our good graces again).
Your Watercooler Moment. Double Overtime in the Thunderdome.
How Jacked Up Does the ThunderDome Look? (h/t @amurawa)
That’s right, we’re passing on the #4 North Carolina vs. #7 Wisconsin snoozer in favor of a high-intensity, mid-major game that went two overtimes and featured enough twists, turns and amazing plays to outdo the entire ACC/Big Ten Challenge. Luckily, our man Andrew Murawa was there for all 50 minutes of the action. Here’s his report (and some highlights from the UCSB side here).
This Weekend’s Lede. All the Way Back. College basketball trickled out last week, but with a total of 232 games taking place between Friday and Sunday nights, it’s safe to say that the November fire hose of hoops has been turned on. Every Top 25 team except one (Memphis) played at least once over the weekend, and those schools went 30-2 playing mostly unranked teams that never had much of a chance. There were a couple of exceptions, of course, and we’ll be sure to get to those below. Regardless of the quality of the ball (and it mostly ranged from adequate to poor), how satisfying was it to see regular updates over the weekend bringing you scores, highlights and storylines from games that actually count? It was fantastic, and with all of the great events coming up in the next two weeks — Champions Classic, Coaches vs. Cancer, CBE, Legends, Maui, PNIT, the conference challenges — it’s a great time to be a college basketball fan.
Your Watercooler Moment. This one is easy.
The Setting For Outdoor Basketball in San Diego Was Spectacular (credit: US Pacific Fleet)
It’s somewhat rare that a gimmicky game like the Carrier Classic could end up being so completely awesome, but you could tell when you heard the voices of the players, coaches, media and military personnel on Friday night that they all felt like they were in the midst of something special. Maybe it was the fact that it was Veterans Day, or that President Obama was there, or that the Coronado evening came through with a gorgeously orange sunset… we don’t care. What we do care about is that the setting and venue put college basketball on a pedestal (literally) for its unofficial opening night, and for a game that sometimes fails to promote itself in a manner commensurate with its passion, fanfare and excitement, the inaugural Carrier Classic was a big-time hit. Oh, and #1 North Carolina needs to work on its offensive rebounding…
Dunktastic. Is it possible that the best dunk of the entire season was on the opening weekend? Goodness… Jeremy Lamb, who knew?
Tonight’s Lede. Say It Ain’t So, Joe! On the second night of games of the opening week of college basketball, we’d be completely remiss if we didn’t comment on the insane evening that took over the airwaves while the Coaches vs. Cancer games were going on in the background. The number of stomach-turning things about this entire sordid Penn State affair are too many to count, but the absolutely shameful response by PSU students more concerned with protecting their beloved coach than recognizing the basic simplicity of right from wrong is beyond incomprehensible. Where have we come to as a society when the middle 80% of this great land are only moved to demonstration when our sports heroes are under duress or we’ve killed an enemy of the state? Why not take the streets in outrage over the numerous children whose innocent lives were destroyed by the selfish and criminal actions of a powerful few? That folks would care when it matters, and matter when they care. Mistakes were made at Penn State; it doesn’t mean that Joe Paterno is a horrible person, but it does mean that he has to go.
Lavin Returned Early From Medical Leave and Led His Team to a Victory (NYDN/A. Theodorakis)
Your Watercooler Moment. Lavin Returns, Surprises His Team. How about some good news in an emotionally rough night? St. John’s head coach Steve Lavin, not someone we would characterize as a man content with sitting around at home, made an early return from his recent prostate cancer surgery and surprised his young team so much that they forgot to play the first half. Truthfully, despite a surfeit of talented parts, St. John’s is going to have evenings when the Red Storm will fall behind by 16 points in the opening stanza because players are still figuring out how to play with each other. But, as Lavin’s interchangeable pieces learn to synergize and feed off one another as they did for the game-changing run in the second half against Lehigh, the ceiling for his team this year appears fluid. And we referred to this angle the other night, but it bears repeating — cancer is an insidious disease, so we love the fact that Lavin was able to make his season debut during one of the Coaches vs. Cancer games. Even before his own diagnosis of prostate cancer, Lavin was a vocal supporter of the various anti-cancer charities related to college basketball. We wish him nothing but the best on his road to complete recovery (having a God’s Gift on hand doesn’t hurt!).
Tonight’s Lede. Year the Fifth. Welcome back for another year of late-night — or overnight, depending on where you are — coverage of the nightly events in college basketball. When we started this feature at the beginning of the 2007-08 season, this was pretty much the only place you could find comprehensive national coverage of the sport posted as soon as possible after the games had ended. Now, everybody does it. They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but we don’t mind — in fact, it only makes us better. We assume you’re familiar with what this post is about, but each weeknight when there are games of national significance going on, we’ll be here with the After the Buzzer wrapup. On weekends, we’ll put together an overview on Sunday nights that will cover the previous couple of days of games. The intent here, mind you, isn’t to bore anybody with game recaps. We hate those probably more than you do. Rather, we try to mine the universe of nightly games to ferret out the most interesting information in terms of what people are (and will be) talking about the next morning. As with anything we do here, feel free to contact us with ideas for improvement or, really, anything else. We’re always listening.
Grabbing the Cats Wasn't Going to Help Tonight (LHL/C. Bertram)
Your Watercooler Moment. Kentucky Lays Waste to Morehouse College. Even though it was opening night for six schools Monday in the 2kSports Coaches vs. Cancer Classic, the game people will be talking about Tuesday morning didn’t even count on anyone’s record. And it’s a good thing, because the NCAA may have had to award John Calipari’s team two or three victories while remanding a completely overmatched Morehouse College down to Division III, or IV, or V, or whatever basketball purgatory teams that lose by 85 points end up. You read that correctly — the final score in last night’s exhibition game between UK and the D-II school better known for notable alumni such as Martin Luther King, Jr. and Spike Lee was 125-40. We won’t cover all the ridiculous stats in this space (The Dagger has you covered for that), but at one point late in the first half the Wildcats finished off a 29-0 run to put their lead at 63-6. It only grew from there, eventually peaking at an 89-point lead that caused the nation’s #1 recruit in the class of 2012, Shabazz Muhammad, to profess his awe. Does it mean anything to lambaste a D-II team by so many points? Probably not. But in just viewing some of the highlights from tonight’s victory, it is abundantly clear that the stable of long, lean athletes that Calipari has at his disposal this season is unmatched in college basketball. At a glance, the Wildcats looked like the Oklahoma City Thunder out there.
Three Dollops of Hoopsurdity.
A Hopeful Family. Everyone is no doubt now familiar with the interesting name of one of St. John’s new star recruits, God’s Gift Achiuwa. But the names of his brothers and sisters helps to give a little perspective. We learned during tonight’s broadcast that the transfer has five brothers and sisters with equally hopeful names: sisters Peace and Grace; brothers Promise, Precious and God’s Will.
The Lede. There are only a handful of days left in the regular season. After 10,000 games, we’ve already eliminated a number of teams from national title contention and we’ll spend the weekend talking about positioning. Most teams are who we know them to be at this late point in the season — like last call in a college bar, it becomes about finding the best light to present yourself to the evaluators, in this case, the NCAA Selection Committee. The numbers ultimately will rule the day, but perception and the ‘sniff test’ are things not easily erased from one’s mind. Let’s see who helped and hurt their positions tonight…
Taylor Was Magnificent Tonight (Indy Star/J. Cecil)
Your Watercooler Moment. Jordan Taylor Dominates Indiana. The ascent of Wisconsin guard Jordan Taylor from solid role player to unknown good player to rising superstar has been remarkable. So remarkable, in fact, that the Cousy Award folks had originally left him off its list of the ten best point guards in America despite the fact that he is clearly more valuable than half the finalists on the list (Brandon Knight — is this a joke?). In watching Taylor blow up Michigan State, Ohio State and now Indiana tonight with a career-high 39 points on 11-19 FG (7-8 from deep), we’re regularly astonished with how well he gets his shots off while defended and they still manage to find the bottom of the net. Many players can shoot the ball when they’re standing open beyond the arc; Taylor, however, is the best player in college basketball shooting the ball with someone right in his face — he regularly takes jumpers where your initial reaction is “wow — tough shot,” only to be surprised when the ball swishes through. Wisconsin has gone from an unranked team in the preseason to a top ten mainstay in the latter part of the year, and as good as Jon Leuer has also been, the primary reason is Taylor. He gives Bo Ryan’s team an offensive option that Madison hasn’t seen since Alando Tucker was residing in Madison; and with the defense that his teams always bring to the table, this makes the Badgers just that much more dangerous this March. If you’re looking for a Final Four darkhorse, you might want to consider this team — they’re every bit as good as all but a few teams in America this year.
Tonight’s Quick Hits…
Emergence of Scotty Hopson. In the last three weeks, UT’s star wing has been playing as well as he has at any point in his Tennessee career. In his last six games including tonight’s win at South Carolina, he’s averaging 23.7 PPG on 52% shooting from the field. While UT’s record hasn’t necessarily improved as a result of his stellar offensive play — UT has gone 3-3 in those games with two one-point losses — the Vols absolutely must have Hopson play like the star he was supposed to be in order for Bruce Pearl’s team maximize its potential this March. If his recent play is any indication, the athletic guard may have finally figured out his role as alpha dog on this team, high fade and all.
A Fourth Pac-10 Team? Washington probably re-secured its Dance ticket with a nice win over UCLA tonight, so we can reasonably expect that those two, along with Arizona, will hear their names called on Selection Sunday. Is there a chance that a fourth Pac-10 team, notably Washington State, could sneak into the NCAA’s crosshairs in the next week or so? After tonight’s home win over USC, if the Cougars can also defeat UCLA over the weekend, Ken Bone’s team would sit at 20-10 (10-8 Pac-10) with a reasonable profile head-to-head against other bubble teams Baylor and Gonzaga (both of whom Wazzu beat earlier this year). Don’t get us wrong — Washington State would still need to make a run in the Pac-10 Tournament to merit serious consideration, but with the right matchups, the Cougars could find themselves in the finals and pushing the Selection Committee to make a difficult decision.
The Lede. The obvious story here is BYU falling apart at home against New Mexico in the aftermath of the suspension of Brandon Davies for the season. While most of the Twitter-verse if flipping out over the game and many are questioning the wisdom of BYU in suspending Davies for violating the Honor Code for what appears to be consensual premarital sex with his girlfriend, there are two things worth pointing out from this game: (1) It wasn’t just that the Cougars got dominated on the inside. They got dominated everywhere on the court. (2) The Lobos appear to be the perfect foil for the Cougars as BYU is 0-4 against them in the past two seasons and 26-1 against the rest of the Mountain West Conference. While the loss of Davies obviously hurts the Cougars — who were paper thin on the inside before his suspension — their play tonight revealed a team that was sloppy and distracted rather than one that was just short-handed. The loss may drop the Cougars out of contention for a #1 seed, but if they can regain their focus, which will be difficult with the coming media circus, they should be in good shape for the NCAA Tournament.
Jimmer needs to rally the troops
UNC and Duke win to set up the biggest game ever! Ok. Not really, but we all know that ESPN and CBS will be hyping up Saturday’s prime time match-up as if it was. To be fair, it is for the ACC regular season title, which nobody thought would be up for grabs at the start of December. Since that time, a lot has changed. Duke lost Kyrie Irving, the heart and soul of its team, no matter what Coach K tries to tell you. UNC has seen the emergence of Harrison Barnes, who might not be quite the player that he was expected to be when he was named the first AP Preseason freshman All-American ever, but in the past month he has played solid basketball and you would be hard-pressed to another player who has hit as many clutch shots this season, freshman or otherwise. His latest addition to the resume was a cold-blooded three in the closing moments against FSU in Tallahassee that proved to be the game-winner when the Seminoles were unable to get off a shot at the end. While neither team was particularly impressive today –particularly the Blue Devils, who struggled to wake up against Clemson after the traditional Senior Night festivities honoring Nolan Smith and Kyle Singler — it’s an intriguing match-up, as UNC will hold an edge on the inside, particularly with the recent solid play of John Henson (double-doubles in seven of the last 10 games) and the continued development of Kendall Marshall (eight assists tonight), while the Blue Devils have the stars (Smith and Singler) and the experience.
The Lede. The story of this week so far appears to be just how difficult it is for us to find 37 at-large teams to fill out this year’s bracket. Can you imagine how this would look if they NCAA had expanded to 96 teams? We’d be discussing teams like New Mexico, Cal and Ole Miss as serious candidates for inclusion, a specter that nobody would want to face. Memo to all the bubble teams — give us a reason to support your selection, will you?
Diebler Didn't Need to Drive Tonight (AP/J. Beale)
Your Watercooler Moment. Bubble, Bubble, Toil & Trouble. On Saturday night, after Virginia Tech successfully vanquished the Dookies and RTC’d with reckless abandon, we wrote: “Did Virginia Tech Finally Get Over the NCAA Hump? Of course, it’s hard to say for certain with these guys. After vanquishing #1 Duke for its most important win in years, the Hokies will probably turn around and lose to Boston College at home on Tuesday. Let’s hope not.” Sigh……… And Seth Greenberg dares to argue year after year why his team is left on the outside of the NCAA Tournament looking in? His team didn’t show up tonight, falling behind by as much as 30-12 in the opening minutes and only making half-hearted runs the rest of the way — put simply, BC appeared to be a team that wanted to play in the NCAAs, while Tech seemed to play like they were already guaranteed a bid. The Hokies now sit at 19-10 (9-6 ACC) with a tough trip to fellow bubbler Clemson over the weekend on the horizon. It’s going to be another one of those Marches for the Virginia Tech fanbase, as even with a bubble softer than Greenberg’s midsection, the Hokies are no lock for the NCAAs and are generally unlikely to make things easy on the Selection Committee.
In other Bubble trouble, several teams hurt their case in what is rapidly becoming a race to the dirty bottom in terms of finding enough legitimate teams to fill out this year’s 68-team bracket.
Baylor – The Bears were already on a bit of life support with only a handful of bracketologists having Baylor as a part of the 68-team field based on their current resume. Getting a road win against a middle-pack Big 12 team would have helped, but a terrible shooting night from their backcourt of LaceDarius Dunn and AJ Walton (combined 5-26 FGs) did them in. The Bears host reeling Texas over the upcoming weekend, but it’s looking more and more that, with a weak RPI and few quality wins of substance, that the only way Baylor finds its way back into the Dance is by making a run in the Big 12 Tournament.
Alabama – For a half, it appeared that maybe, finally, inexorably, Anthony Grant’s team might get the kind of marquee win that would make all the bracketologists stand up and take notice that they’re playing some pretty good ball down in Tuscaloosa this winter. It wasn’t to be. Florida blistered the Tide with a 48-21 second half, breaking open a tied game at the half and clinching the Gators’ first SEC regular season title since the Oh-Fours left campus in 2007. For Bama, its rough non-conference schedule is likely to act as an NCAA albatross two Sundays from now — the Tide needs to win the SEC Tournament, more than likely, to Dance this year.
Illinois – The Illini competed with Purdue tonight, but they simply weren’t going to beat the Boilermakers in their building where they were 16-0 this season. This loss won’t hurt them much, but they do not want to enter the Big Ten Tournament next week with an 8-10 conference record and absolutely needing a win, do they? Beating Indiana at home is a security blanket that they cannot afford to drop (Illinois lost to Indiana in Bloomington, remember).
Tonight’s Quick Hits…
Louis Farrakhan as College Hoops Patron. Yes, you read that correctly. We don’t usually think of the elderly Nation of Islam leader and college basketball at the same time, ever, but Farrakhan attended tonight’s NC State-Virginia game to represent for his grandson, Cavalier guard Mustapha, during his Senior Night. Farrakhan the Younger dropped 15/4/3 assts in an 11-point win for Virginia, a key victory as the Wahoos attempt to keep an overall winning record to become NIT-eligible this season. The Cavs are currently 15-14 with a road game at Maryland and the ACC Tournament upcoming, so they still have some work to do. We suppose this might be the first and only time that Farrakhan will ever attend a college hoops game.
The Lede. The last Big Monday of the 2010-11 season was short on games, but heavy on lessons learned. So what did we learn, exactly? That one team left for dead in the Big 12 race at midseason is completely back behind a guy playing with a giant chip on his shoulder; that another team who looked like a #1 seed lock two weeks ago is dangerously close to another epic collapse; that a Big East team whom nobody had much faith in (ourselves included) is turning heads on its way to a top two seed in the NCAA Tournament; and that another Big East team that looked Final Four-caliber in January is limping into the postseason with a couple of bloody appendages. In other words, what we thought we knew we didn’t actually know, and what we think we now know probably isn’t what we know either — all of this is just a convoluted way of saying that, once again, it’s March.
With Digger Young & Old Watching, ND Crushed It From Deep (CT/M. Cashore)
Your Watercooler Moment. The Longhorn Collapse Came Later Than Usual This Year. We got concerned when the Horns gave up 70 points at Nebraska a little over a week ago; we tried to ignore it when they gave up a 58-point half over the weekend at Colorado. But to drop a game at home against a team that couldn’t beat anybody a few weeks ago proves that we need to stand up and take notice. Rick Barnes’ team is going through another one of his patented collapses — it just took longer this year for it to manifest itself. With its third loss in four games, Texas is beginning to resemble the Horns of the last two vintages, both of whom looked great at midseason only to fall apart as the days grew longer and the calendar turned to March. In tonight’s game against surging Kansas State, it was once again the Longhorn defense, so spectacular for most of the season, that failed. The Horns gave up 50% shooting to the Wildcats, the first time all season that a team has reached that mark for the game, and K-State’s 1.15 points per possession is the second-best against UT all season (Colorado’s 1.17 PPP two days ago was the best). Much has been written already about how Jordan Hamilton cannot hit a shot right now, and that much is true (25.9% in the last three losses), but Rick Barnes knows that it’s his defense that is abandoning him. Whether that’s a function of players like Hamilton, Tristan Thompson and Cory Joseph looking forward to pay-for-play, it’s difficult to say, but without question the tight chemistry that this team showed in dominating the Big 12 defensively during January and most of February is now gone. As for K-State, Frank Martin has done an excellent job in getting his Wildcats back into the hunt in both the Big 12 and the postseason conversation. Having now won eight of ten Big 12 games after a miserable 1-4 start, K-State is trending quickly as one of the teams nobody will want to see opposite them as a #4/#5 seed in two weeks.
Your Watercooler Moment, Pt. II. Irish Eyes Smile to the Tune of Twenty Threes. If you predicted that the top four teams in the 2010-11 Big East regular season would be Pitt (ok), Notre Dame (what?), Louisville (huh?) and St. John’s (no way!), give yourself a one-way ticket to Vegas because you are clearly some kind of expert soothsayer. Yet that’s where we stand on the last Big Monday of the season after Mike Brey’s Fighting Irish nailed a school-record twenty threes in an explosive performance to dominate Villanova tonight, 93-72. Notre Dame star Ben Hansbrough hit for 30/10 assts on 7-10 shooting from deep, while Tim Abromaitis went for 30/4/4 assts while shooting 9-13 from deep. For the pair of seniors who have led Notre Dame to a surprisingly exceptional season causing Irish fans to think Final Four, it was a capstone performance for a season that has wildly exceeded all reasonable expectations. The question is whether the Irish are in fact a serious threat to make a run to Houston, and we still hesitate to place this team on the top tier because of its sometimes-questionable defense. But with shooters like Mike Brey has at his disposal (both Hansbrough and Abromaitis are 40%+ guys) and an ability to dictate pace with less disciplined teams, the Irish are going to be a very tough out both in the Big East and NCAA Tournaments later this month.
The Lede. It was the last weekend in February, and as we come out of it, we’re less clear about who the favorites are to cut down the nets in early April than we have been at any point this season. RTCs went down in Blacksburg, Boulder, Springfield and more, befitting the stress, pressure and expectations of a season reaching its regular season terminus. As usual, after a weekend like this, there’s a lot to cover, so let’s jump right in with some of the major moments…
An RTC Kinda Weekend
Your Watercooler Moment. Parity is This Year’s Dominance. It was another weekend where many of the top teams came away with losses. #2 Duke (#1 AP/#1 ESPN) went to Cassell Coliseum in Blacksburg, Virginia, on Saturday night and left with a lighter load. #3 Pittsburgh (#4 AP/#6 ESPN) dropped a tough Big East road battle at Louisville for the second straight weekend. #4 Texas (#5 AP/#5 ESPN) suffered a ridiculously bad second half at Colorado and headed back to Austin with two Ls in its last three outings. #5 San Diego State (#6 AP/#4 ESPN) suffered the ignoble embarrassment of getting Jimmered in its own building by the only team to have proven it can beat the Aztecs this season. Shuffle the deck for another week and repeat. The only top teams to come out unscathed this weekend were #1 Ohio State (#2 AP/#3 ESPN), #6 Kansas (#3 AP/#2 ESPN) and #7 BYU (#7 AP/#7 ESPN) — and both the Buckeyes and Jayhawks were part of last week’s poll carnage. The point we’re making is a simple one: the field is completely wide open this year. It wouldn’t surprise us nor should it surprise you if none of the eventual #1 seeds make it to the Final Four — the difference between the top seven named above and the next tier of teams is not large. The four teams we would put on our top line as of tonight — Ohio State, Pitt, BYU and Kansas — are all strong candidates to lose at least one more game between now and Selection Sunday, now only fourteen days out. This kind of parity among the top teams makes for an exciting NCAA Tournament, but it shouldn’t shock anybody if the seeds that make it to Houston in April add up to a total well into the teens (e.g., 2, 3, 6, 8).
Your Watercooler Moment, Pt. II. That Stupid Louisville Cheerleader. If Rick Pitino were a little younger and brasher (say, the Knicks or early Kentucky eras), the Louisville cheerleader who grabbed the ball and tossed it up into the air after what appeared to be Kyle Kuric’s game-sealing dunk would already be encased in concrete in the Ohio River locks. Instead, the older and somewhat more forgiving head coach will likely only have a horse’s head delivered to the cheerleader’s bed for making his gaffe with 0.5 seconds remaining on the clock. The sophomoric ball-toss resulted in two technical FTs for Pitt taking a five-point lead down to three, and the Panthers put up a decent half-court heave at the buzzer that would have tied the game. We can understand a little confusion with respect to the last half-second of time running off the clock, but why touch the ball at all? That should be the province of the players and game officials, nobody else, and the cheer people should understand that better than most. Here’s the question on everyone’s mind, though: will Cheer Dufus be back in action or will Pitino have him removed (we’re not sure what “The male cheerleader is coming to an end” means exactly)?
Your Watercooler Moment, Pt. III. Tyler Trapani Shuts Down Pauley With an Assist From the Ghost of John Wooden. It was the last game in Pauley Pavilion, the House That Wooden Built, before it undergoes massive renovations over the next year-plus to bring the building seemingly mired in the 1960s into the modern era. UCLA was throttling league-leading Arizona and the Bruin partisans were rocking out with every Reeves Nelson dunk, Josh Smith twirl and each long-range brick from Arizona. With just a few seconds remaining in garbage time, UCLA’s Jack Haley, Jr., missed a corner three badly short; standing directly under the basket to catch it and lay it in as the final points scored in the “old” Pauley was walk-on Tyler Trapani, The Wizard of Westwood’s great-grandson. The bucket represented his only two points of the entire season, and it seemed a fitting tribute to finishing off the old barn in its current state. Pauley Pavilion is one of the temples of the sport, so we’re glad to hear that UCLA is finally updating it — it’s our opinion that modernizing a terrific old venue is much preferred to building an austere and lifeless new one.
This Weekend’s Quick Hits…
Virginia Tech and Colorado’s RTCs. Coverage of the court was quick, complete and rowdy, befitting how you should RTC when you take down a top five team in your building. Virginia Tech’s crowd was fantastic the entire evening, as the below video clearly illustrates (move ahead for the RTC, and here’s a bird’s eye view if you’re into that). As the second video shows, Colorado’s was also quite good (here’s another from within the maelstrom at center court). Perhaps more importantly, the huge wins keep both teams’ hopes alive for an at-large NCAA bid in two weeks. Much was expected from both of these schools prior to season tipoff, but they’ve had myriad ups and downs along the way. These two huge wins will go a long way toward finding the right side of the bubble in fourteen days.
