Big East Memories: 6 Overtimes, 1 Memorable Night

[huskyjawz]

I grew up near Tobacco Road knowing the Atlantic Coast Conference was king. But as I walked down 33rd Street after dawn and hailed a taxi home to Queens and toward the sunrise, I reconsidered.

http://thequad.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/03/09/big-east-memories-6-overtimes-1-memorable-night/

 

[Gurleyman]

Meh. That game stunk. On one end, Syracuse sat in a zone and we stood around on offense to rest. On the other end, we didn't even try to guard them - we overplayed them so severely that they had no choice but to dribble into Thabeet. Terrible basketball. It just was a lot of extra terrible basketball.

I don't remember anything about that prolonged clunker other than the basket that didn't count. And Scottie Haralson almost had the winning basket at one point, which would have been neat. There are heavyweight bouts where boxers throw haymakers at each other, and then there are ones where they just hug each other for 15 rounds. This was a hugger.

The greatest BET game ever was when we pimped St. John's, yo. But perhaps I'm not being objective.

 

[BugsyCT]

Kemba's ankle-breaker 2 years ago today:



The BE and MSG will miss us. They won't have it this good again. We provided tons of memorable moments.

 

[Inyatkin]

That's part of a whole Times retrospective on the end of the Big East tournament. Don't bother with it. You'd think the only contribution the seven-time champions made was losing an extra-long game in 2009.
I swear, people who think Pearl Washington means more to the history of the Big East than Richard Hamilton need to have their head examined.

 

[BoatShow]

But we don't have T-Shirts about Kemba's ankle breaker.

 

[Gurleyman]

And lest anyone think I'm just bitter about losing to Cuse, McNamara's run including the tying 3 against us belongs right up at the top of great BET performances, a notch behind Kemba. And Kemba's 33 and 13 in the OT win over Cuse is sort of a forgotten blip on that 11-game run, in between the ankle breaker, the pass to Lamb and the NCAA run. Plus we pimped Jason Hart's Cuse team, yo, right before pimping Metta World Peace's team, but that was just routine.

 

[RoderickSpode]

That's part of a whole Times retrospective on the end of the Big East tournament. Don't bother with it. You'd think the only contribution the seven-time champions made was losing an extra-long game in 2009.
I swear, people who think Pearl Washington means more to the history of the Big East than Richard Hamilton need to have their head examined.

You're 100% right. It's a combination of nostalgia (most current writers were either starting out or kids in the early years of the Big East) and the Syracuse influence on the media. If you went by sports writers, you'd think Syracuse has as many titles as UCLA.

 

[FluxTZ]

You're 100% right. It's a combination of nostalgia (most current writers were either starting out or kids in the early years of the Big East) and the Syracuse influence on the media. If you went by sports writers, you'd think Syracuse has as many titles as UCLA.

So true.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2

 

[Gurleyman]

To some degree, there's a certain cache to building the credibility of the league in the early years. I get that part of it. But the league as a whole had turned into a postseason dud after the peak of the mid-80's. Rip and crew's title in 1999 was huge for UConn, but it was also huge for the league. It generated a second wave of glory years.

In terms of classics, we had big late comebacks to beat Gtown in 1996 and Pitt in 2004, double OT with Pitt in 2002 in the final (trumps 6 in the quarters, imo), the 2011 run (complete with ankle breaker), the 1990 Georgetown-Syracuse exacta that was our March coming out party (Big Boy edition).

We've really tortured Pitt in the BET. Maybe they rank behind Washington and Duke nationally (Duke has done fine otherwise, but we did take two titles that they thought were theirs and you know that really smokes their tobacco).

 

[RoderickSpode]

We've really tortured Pitt in the BET. Maybe they rank behind Washington and Duke nationally (Duke has done fine otherwise, but we did take two titles that they thought were theirs and you know that really smokes their tobacco).

I've met a number of UNC fans who, despite their feelings on JC or whatever else, will love our program forever for keeping Duke's championship tally behind theirs.

 

[Ts5034]

Hmm. I was at the 6 OT game so maybe thats why it has some sentimental value for me but still, you cant degrade that game just because we lost. Every single one of those guys played their hearts out. The players brought it, the fans brought it, and the stage it was set on with the Big East Tournament and Madison Square Garden made it. I mean 6 overtimes is so rare and i dont think 2 teams could pull that off even if they tried. Im sure if we won that game and went on to win the BET in 2009, it would be viewed by UConn fans in a whole different light.

 

[Gurleyman]

It is a bit of a paradox to me - and my opinion certainly isn't the be all and end all of this, so I don't begrudge anyone who has fond memories of it even in defeat. To me, the game is memorable more for the peripheral things - six overtimes, ending after the trains stopped running, players going 65 minutes, walk-ons (and near walk-ons like Haralson) forced into action. But the game itself was kinda bad. The only memorable play of the entire thing didn't count.

The Duke loss in 1990 is torture, but I recognize it for being a pretty good game with big plays and momentum swings and "oh so close" moments. Burrell fouled out right when we seemed like we might win the thing, then Duke had the thing won but Smitty hit a big 3, then Sellers had a life-saving block, then Tate had it in his hands, then the double clutch. I thought in 6OT, the teams kinda stopped playing and went to bear hugs. Our possessions were 30 seconds of guys standing still until AJ shot off a high screen. Their possessions were taking the lane to the basket that we were giving them and trying to shoot over Thabeet and going for rebounds.

Beyond He Who Shall Not Be Named and Hurley, I remember Alaa Abdelnaby torturing us and still know how to spell it without looking it up, and Phil Henderson hitting a dagger, but I'll be damned if I already forgot the white guy's name for Syracuse who hit an important three to tie it at one point.

Granted, the stakes were different, so it would be logical being that close to the Final Four would be more memorable than being that close to the Big East semis.