Can any sporting event match the excitement of March Madness?
The games played thus far in the tourney exceed anything I have seen since “The Bluegrass Miracle.”
The beauty of this basketball tournament is that a play comparable to “The Bluegrass Miracle” happens every 15 minutes on basketball courts across the country.
It seems nearly every game goes to the wire. I find myself clinching my teeth, jumping up and down and cursing the refs during games that display two teams I’ve seen play maybe one time during the entire season.
When Maryland’s Drew Nicholas drained that running 3-pointer with less than one second left on the clock to beat UNC-Wilmington, tears of ecstasy ran down my smiling face.
Never had I been more excited since Valparaiso’s Bryce Drew nailed that crazy 3-pointer to upend Ole Miss in the first round of the 1998 Dance.
When Wisconsin’s Freddie Owens hit a baseline trey with one second remaining on the clock Saturday– helping the Badgers erase a 13-point Tulsa lead — I nearly cried as I stomped the floor, and that was the first time I had seen Tulsa play all season.
The Arizona-Gonzaga game was hands down the best basketball game I have seen. In this double-overtime thriller, the lead changed hands on ten separate occasions while the Salt Lake City crowd adopted the ‘Zags as their own.
The game represented exactly what the tournament is about, and when the No. 1-seeded Arizona Wildcats triumphed with a one-point win, the players remarked on the electrifying game.
After the game, Wildcats point guard Jason Gardner said, “That was definitely ESPN Classic.”
His teammate Rick Anderson added, “That’s the greatest game I’ve ever played in. I could see it in their eyes. Everybody wanted to win.”
So far in the 2003 NCAA Tournament, there have been four overtime games, 16 games decided by five points or less and 11 games decided by three points or less.
Who would have thought that Butler, a 12th seed, could hang with Mississippi State down the stretch and score a game-winning lane-runner with 6.2 seconds left on the clock and then totally take over the Louisville game with 30 seconds remaining on the clock?
Utah State had two chances to beat Kansas in the final seconds of its first round game but could not get the ball to fall. Had the Jayhawks lost, they would have been only the fifth No. 2 seed ever to be eliminated from the first round.
Auburn was up on Saint Joseph’s by 15 in the first half before watching their lead diminished until the game went into overtime. The Tigers survived the scare and upset Wake Forest in the second round.
And just think, Auburn squeaked into the tournament by the smallest of margins.
As I drove home from Birmingham, Ala., after the nail biter between LSU and Purdue, the radio announcer of the Missouri-Marquette game said, “Buckle your seatbelts, this game is everything we thought it would be.”
With 18 seconds left to play in regulation, I obliged his request and buckled my seatbelt, and I kept it buckled throughout the overtime period as well.
Many of the remaining teams have fate, luck and the tournament mystique to thank for being a member of the Sweet 16.
And the winner of the Big Dance will remember these close encounters on its road to the Final Four.
With four rounds left in this amazing tournament, I can only say I’m glad the games are not during the middle of the week, so I can still make it to class.