6OT game was a lot more fun for me to watch. Maybe cause it was in the Garden, maybe cause I liked the UConn and Syracuse teams more, I'm not sure. However.. The KSU game was called by Gus Johnson, which can't be undervalued.
As for the best game of last year, well atleast in my perspective and the one I was most emotional about---Illinois v. Clemson.
Also want to say, though Jordan hit that crazy long distance 3, I really liked Pullen's 3 at 1:52 of the video. It's so pretty--cut from the baseline, defensive player under the screen, so he decides to zip to the top of the key, get the ball in the shooting pocket, drain it from straight on while the guy is trying to close you out. Doesn't get any more fluid than that.
I was at the 6 OT game, and I've never been to a more immersive sporting event. The entire garden was living and dieing with every possession, and everyone there was exhausted. People forget that that's the fourth game of the day, and many fans were there for all four, and the vast majority had been through at least two.
It certainly was not the prettiest game I've ever seen, but it was a complete experience. I've been a Syracuse fan since I was a little kid, and my brother was with me, and he's a Uconn alum. When Devandorf hit the three at the end of regulation, we hopped the wall to sprint outta there, cause if we could make Grand Central in fifteen minutes, a gargantuan feat, we could catch that train. We were just about to hit the no reentry turnstyle when a girl in one of the beer gardens yelled down the hall that they had waved it off. We ran back, vowing to stay for the full OT, even if it cost us an hour wait on the next train. We wound up sleeping on the steps down to the food court at GC waiting for the 430. I've missed all of two Big East tourney thursday's over the past twenty years, and have seen plenty of other days too, and that game goes down on the short list of my favorites ever that I've been to.
The back to back days of half court buzzer beaters by McNamara a few years back is in the running. The Ray Allen no look running jumpshot. The fight that broke out when BC won on a thursday just after announcing they were abondoning the conference. Even the Va Tech game my boys and I went wild during, getting into it the whole time the swarms of Nova fans surrounding us, until one of them actually asked a real question "who's you're best player?" to which we could only reply "No one on this team is worth more than the 19 points we're getting from the house." Nearly getting into a drunken fight over a team of whom you know almost nothing about is priceless. The time my buddies sister's new schmoe boyfriend horned in with us. We spent the day cheating down seat after seat. He always moved to the inside, a seemingly odd move, until we realized that it was normal protocal for round buying to move from the outside in, and he managed to never buy a round. We secretly sat all his action all day, and watching him pout as he fell to 0 and 3, and down 16 at the half in game four when he got up to use the bathroom, but took his coat, and never came back.
I was at a bar with some friends during the 6OT game. I'd been watching the entire game and left my house to meet up with them in time to catch the end of regulation. We'd already started a game of Golden Tee before they waved off Devendorf's shot.
By the time the game was over, we'd finished 36 more holes of Golden Tee and after about four 23 oz. Sierra Nevadas, I was pretty buzzed. When you can be sober at the end of regulation of a basketball game and no longer legally eligible to drive by the actual end of it....that's a marathon.
Definitely Syracuse/UConn. I was getting calls and texts from friends that don't even follow college ball with "are you watching this?!" Around the third overtime it became so all intensive I just invited friends over and we all watched. It was nuts. A little mini party got started in central Indiana just because of a Big East game. Behold, the power of sport.
If anyone has a download/stream link for that game it'd be cool.
Definitely Syracuse/UConn. I was getting calls and texts from friends that don't even follow college ball with "are you watching this?!" Around the third overtime it became so all intensive I just invited friends over and we all watched. It was nuts. A little mini party got started in central Indiana just because of a Big East game. Behold, the power of sport.
If anyone has a download/stream link for that game it'd be cool.
This immersiveness is why I brought up the crowd that night. That day is exhausting even for the most hard core sports fans, and there was this feeling from the entire crowd that we're right there with the players. People leaving early to catch trains were almost looked at like they gave up on the sport in general. And the fans, who are often the top few most rowdy of the Big East (although they have an odd mutual respect for each other that differentiates them from others), got this weird sensation that we were all just happy to be part of it. Just a really great experience.
Which game did you enjoy more?
