A finger lickin' good game

Louisville 62 - Pitt 59 OT

So yeah yeah the Panthers lost against the Cardinals how will this affect Pitt's bid for a #1 seed in the tournament blah blah. The real story here was in the final seconds of the game. Score 60 to 57 in overtime the Cardinals stole the ball from Pitt and drove the length of the court ending with a slam dunk making it 62 to 57. Thunderous applause erupted from the Yum Center. A Louisville male cheerleader who mistakenly thought the game was over ran out onto the court, grabbed the basketball and threw it up into the air.

Only there was 1.5 seconds left on the clock. Louisville was assessed a technical for the cheerleader stunt. Now the CBS cameras were trained on that cheerleader for 10 minutes while the referees were assessing the technical. The announcers (including Gus Johnson) were saying "if Pitt wins this game because of what that cheerleader did he is in trouble!". The look on his face was priceless. Clearly uncomfortable but trying to be cool about it. Pitt shot two free throws making the score 62 to 59. They got the ball but alas was unable to score ending the game.

That was classic. Go Louisville.

UPDATE: Video of the whole sordid affair heyah.

%^*&%$@!

Sigh. We've been through this before:

The official March to Madness position of Article 10, Section 1(b)(i) of the 2005 NBA Collective Bargaining Agreement is that of opposition.

The rule that basically forces high school kids to play college basketball for a minimum of 1 year before joining the NBA should be changed to 3 years. There is a lot of support for this out there but then comes this jackass who apparently feels that people should believe the sun rotates around the earth again:

"With the NBA's labor agreement about to expire, the players' union reportedly is going to ask the league to drop the age restriction. Good. It's time to stop this charade and for all said parties to quit faking it. The NBA and the NCAA need to agree that if a kid is going to college, he has to do more than sleep through two courses before cashing a check."

We. Couldn't. Disagree. More. This is precisely why this rule needs to be strengthened, not eliminated. He then goes on explaining how all these one-and-done players are "fake students" and are making a mockery out of the NCAA and the NBA. Well no shit dude, this is precisely why the rule needs to be strengthened. If you strengthened the rule you would not have kids "sleeping through two courses before cashing a check". The environment right now is producing what you do not like. To eliminate it would take a step back to the wild west days of Kwame Brown, Robert Swift and Jonathan Bender. We HATE the NBA so peace be unto you if that's what you want. However if you were to see it OUR way it would be a win-win situation:

1) Committed student-athletes for the NCAA
2) More polished and mature players for the NBA

Is it really this hard to understand this needs to be done?

No freedom for Ben Hansbrough

Kentucky 72 - Notre Dame 58

Notre Dame basically fell apart like smoked chicken in this game. With the score 42 Wildcats 40 Irish at the half Notre Dame came out in the second half and did... nothing. Except shoot 36% from the field and 26% from beyond the arc. There were so many missed shots by the Fighting Irish that the word "Really?" started being bandied about by a few of us. It was essentially like watching two different teams. On the other hand Kentucky was the same as a few days ago really. Inexperienced, dumb errors but this time were able to pull it out because of Notre Dame's mental collapse.


San Diego State 77 - UC Berkeley 57

"We've never been ranked, so everything is positive when it happens. We embrace it. We think we deserve to be there. I told our team today, I want to look on December 9 and see if we're still there."
- SDSU coach Steve Fisher

Oh yes, it is December 9th and you are still here. And we are speechless. On the road the Aztecs played an even more complete game than last time. And finally SDSU was on target with their three point shooting. In fact it was that aspect that put the game out of reach for Cal. The Golden Bears played a great game and we were right to fear Gutierrez. But in the end great defense and terrific perimeter shooting (can't believe we are saying that) won the day. Go Aztecs.

Oh the indignity

Called out on CBS for our mistake in ranking Michigan instead of Michigan State:



And yes, we were a little distracted by that horse-whipping. Hello NIT!