From Bono to the Syracuse Basketball team

You've got to get yourself together, you've got stuck in a moment and now you can't get out of it.

Good luck tonight with West Virginia.

A prediction...

Wisconsin is going to beat the fuck out of Michigan State.

Not a prediction: Gus Johnson is going to be calling that game. Joy.

The downward spiral continues

College of Charleston 91 - Tennessee 78

Diagram of a basketball team in free fall:

A) Coach is sanctioned for breaking NCAA rules and then lying about it? Check.
B) Team then goes out and loses against inferior schools? Check.
C) Coach explodes during a game, is ejected and team goes on to lose said game? Check.

The Dude would take a look at the Vols and say "Look, nothing is fucked here, man." However...

Rocky (Top) Tennessee

USC 65 - Tennessee 64

Go here first. Ok, so what we observed was a complete lack of closing a game out by the Volunteers. Add to that an inordinate amount of turnovers by Tennessee and then cap that off by points scored off those turnovers by the Trojans and you have the above. Did we miss anything? The Vols are going downhill faster than Shaun White.

Saluki downshift

"Yesterday all my trouble seemed so far away
Now it looks as though they're here to stay
Oh I believe in yesterday"
- Paul McCartney, Yesterday

Oh what a difference 3 years make. The Southern Illinois Salukis were the talk of the town, their coach was the queen of the ball getting them to their 3rd Sweet 16 in school history, along with numerous job offers.

My how things change...



If you can stomach the hi-larious Hitler reference therein lies a point. SIU has been in a horrific talespin losing nearly every other game. In a world of "what have you done for me lately" no matter how rational the defenders of coach Chris Lowery are, you will always have haters.

Long live the haters. And happy Friday.

Picture Pages: North Carolina edition

What the blue hell is going on with North Carolina basketball?

How could Syracuse lose that game?

Syracuse dominated that first half! WWL, can we have a chart?



Look at that. The Orange demonstrated why they were the 5th ranked team in the country. Pitt was out rebounded, out hustled, out shot, basically any phase of the game you can think of the Panthers were out classed. Then the second half happened...



And there you go. Pittsburgh was allowed to come back and impose their will. This then broke the will of Syracuse, eventually falling 72 to 82.

Always be closing? We're not giving that to the Orange but damn. What happened?

Le sigh

Oh, c'mon George Mason. Well, we've got our first award for the season.

For you Patriots, leading 6th rank Villanova until the final minute of the game whereby you had an epic collapse of judgment. You get the Always Be Closing award.


Where was Blake during that collapse...

Are you kidding me?

Harvard dismantles Boston College 82 - 70.

From giant killers to killed in the blink of an eye. The score is misleading as well as the Crimson controlled most of the game with the Eagles looking kinda like how UNC looked three days earlier. The sad thing was BC's coach Skinner was warning and warning about this. His players just didn't give a damn we guess.

Wow.

All she wanted was

Who would have seen that coming? Arkansas beat Oklahoma in stunning fashion...



Awwww, don't cry. Maybe a decent win for the Sooners can accompany that snow.

Y'all need to be careful

UCLA almost got upset by fisty Miami (of Ohio, not of Florida). Funny thing is they blamed it on the freshmen.

LOS ANGELES (AP) -UCLA's five freshmen will have to wait. The Bruins' seniors aren't ready to completely hand over control just yet.

With the outcome in doubt Thursday night, (senior) Darren Collison made two free throws with 21 seconds remaining and No. 4 UCLA survived a defensive struggle to beat Miami (Ohio) 64-59 in the 2K Sports Classic.

Highlights of that scare -


C'mon guys, they were only freshmen...

Florida guard Nick Calathes loves his poker. Too bad his poker doesn't love him back...

"I lost money," Calathes said. "I really don't know how much."

...Nick Calathes ran up a significant debt playing poker online, but said Friday night he did nothing illegal. The story first reported by Yahoo.com said Calathes amassed a $600 debt playing poker online.

"The only thing I'm going to say about any of that stuff is the unfortunate part in all this is nobody on our team has done anything wrong," (Florida coach) Donovan said.

And that's, that. No, wait... Something else happened. Can't quite put our finger on it... Something keeps repeating itself. Hmmm....

Dé·jà vu: 1 a: the illusion of remembering scenes and events when experienced for the first time b: a feeling that one has seen or heard something before 2: something overly or unpleasantly familiar

Kentucky once again gets sliced by the most unlikely of opponents.

Billy Gillispie didn't mention Gardner-Webb, but his postgame assessment was verbatim from the last time his Kentucky team was shocked like this.

"They whipped us," Gillispie said of the Wildcats' 111-103 upset to Virginia Military Institute Friday night.

Ok, back to more basketball watching.

It had to be said...

Trojans burst under pressure from Beavers

Jayhawks - You teh winner!

I don't care what anyone says, if Chris Douglas-Roberts did not miss those two free throws and Derrick Rose did not miss that one, the Tigers would have been crowned king last night.



Memphis? Alec Baldwin is here on an errand of mercy and he has a lesson for you...



All in all a very exciting game though. I was watching it with the guys, some of whom don't even like college basketball. And even they were into that game!

End game bracket -



Tomorrow we will have our Moment of Zen and also our off-season posting rules. College hoops is now done until winter. =(

I was wroooooooooong.....

From a post earlier today: "In other news, Davidson to pay travel, lodging and tickets for 300 students to see their school get ass-raped by Wisconsin tonight."

As Jeremy Davies said in Solaris: "Yeah......."

Davidson does a Sparta on Wisconsin, winning by 73 to 56.

SPARTA!!!!!!!!

Oh well. Why do you still listen to me?

Duke, the bracket killer

We didn't have Duke in as a National Champ. But we had Duke going far. They seemed to be on fire throughout the season. But they also seemed to have a late collapse. Then going in the tournament they almost get beat by Belmont, and now fall to West Fuckin Virginia.



Oh well. Not like Coach K has to worry about his job. But still. I'm not mad, I'm just shocked that I was so wrong about them.

What's your name anway?

I'm not being bitter. I think this is well deserved. Stanford had the lead over UCLA for almost the ENTIRE GAME. Then allowed the Bruins to catch up. Then proceeded to collapse in overtime.

Tied at 63 after regulation, the Bruins dominated overtime by outscoring the Cardinal 14-4. Brook Lopez and Mitch Johnson scored Stanford's only baskets...

Stanford Cardinals, you win the Always Be Closing award!


Fuck you, that's my name!!!

Picture pages III

Add your own caption to this picture...

My caption is "Michigan State's season in the making..."

That kid gets it...

Texas A&M just lost in a stunning collapse. Things don't seem right in the world. Your eyes are welling up. You have that knot in your throat. That pain that makes it hurt to swallow.

And all you have is an empty bucket of popcorn, fingers still moist from butter and saliva. And you just stare at it, sitting in the bleachers feeling so alone. Wondering what you can do to ease this pain you feel.

March To Madness is here to help, friend...


That's it. And again. As many times as it takes.