Today's Insanity Highlights Why Championship Week Is By Far The Craziest Week Of The Year
We all agree that the NCAA Tournament is better. That's not what I'm getting at here. But those who are either gamblers or die hard college basketball fans know that Championship Week, Friday especially, is the craziest part of it all. We get 16 games a day max next week, during a day like today you have a zillion games. You have awesome games too - big time semifinals, mid-majors, quarterfinals. Basically everything and anything you could ask for. It might be missing last year, but today just reminded me of how insane this day tends to be. Just look at the shit we've had throughout the day - I'm going to try to sum it up as clean as possible here.
Coach Fight
This has been the most talked about thing today and rightfully so. You don't see coaches go at it on the court and in postgame pressers like this often. We don't need to go too much into this because it was blogged a few times today, but this got our day started. STARTED.
Gambling finishes
I still can't get over that Cincinnati one. That's what this is all about. That over hit at the buzzer after a review. Actually, let me be more specific. The total was 143.5, they had 111 with 3 minutes to go. They combined to score TWENTY points in the last 48 seconds of the game. In college. How? We're not talking about some offensive firepower here or anything. 20 points! Just a make or break type game if you had one side there.Upsets
Three major conferences and we have two auto bids alive. What do I mean by that? Oregon State and Georgetown have zero chance to be an at-large and here they are in their conference title games. Just think if Georgetown steals a bid and it costs Syracuse. I'm sure both fan bases will be very calm about that. Throw in Oklahoma State upsetting Baylor and we can check this box off. They were all great games too, not surprising.
Other games with wild endings
Can also throw in Texas Southern beating Jackson State in OT, Buffalo beating Akron in OT, Montana State beating Southern Utah in OT, WKU/UAB just being an awesome game. I still can't believe that UConn three didn't go in. Gus was on the call! That shot goes in 100% of the time with Gus on the call. He wanted to scream. He was ready to explode. It was such a clean look too.
Rick Pitino
We are 40 minutes away from Rick Pitino making the NCAA Tournament. Correction, we are 40 minutes away from Rick Pitino beating a 7 seed from him coaching a 16 seed in the NCAA Tournament. That's wild and awesome all wrapped into one. Not surprising, I mean Pitino is one of the 5 best coaches of all time. It's a little unfair to have him coaching a mid-major like Iona. Just a complete coaching mismatch with him on the sidelines. But now we are all Iona fans. We need and deserve to watch Pitino coaching a 16 seed next week.
Just a typical Friday in Championship Week. Shit, it's still going on. USC/Colorado are playing right now. San Diego State just beat Nevada (with a hell of a Nevada +8.5 cover there). Utah State/Colorado State are about to tip between two bubble teams. And we get to do it all tomorrow with a bunch of title games.