March is Mad: The Agony of Defeat

Duke vs. LSU
Duke is out. They lost to LSU in the Sweet 16. There go my brackets. I knew Duke wasn't that strong this year - not as strong as they've been in year's past - but I had watched them a handful of times and no team seemed to be able to beat them. Well, now you know how. Follow LSU's lead: have a 6'4" athletic-as-all-get-out-guard squat on Duke's All-Star Shooting Guard Redick all night. Seriously, I have been to proms and people haven't been as close at that defender was to Redick all night. And it worked. All-American, Second in the nation in scoring. 67 percent from three-point range. 3-19. Three. For Nineteen. 9 points. Wow.


Duke's J.J. Redick, left, hugs coach Mike Krzyzewski at the end of Duke's 62-54 loss to Louisiana State.


West Virginia vs. Texas
This game wasn't televised in my area, because the UCLA game was on. But I saw the ticker said that there was 3:54 to go and the teams were only separated by two points. The Gonzaga game had 13 minutes left, and Gonzaga was up by 12, so I quickly went to my computer and logged on to March Madness on Demand, a free service from CBS Sports where they have live video and audio streams of every NBA game that you aren't getting in your area. How cool. So I watched the last three minutes of the UT vs. WVU game. Shocking. West Virginia, down 5, hits a way-out three with 14.9 seconds. Down 2. WVU fouls UT on the inbounds. It's their center. He misses the first free throw, hits the second. WVU down 3 with 13.9 seconds left. WVU inbounds, dribbles, sets up a high screen for their 7 foot center, Kevin Pittsnogle, this freak of a man who can hit threes as comfortably as most guards. Pittsnogle squares up, drains the three with 5 seconds. Tie Game! But wait. UT inbounds while the WVU defense is scrambling.

This was the final shot.


Texas guard Kenton Paulino (12) goes up for the winning shot with less than a second to go as West Virginia's Frank Young defends. The shot would go in and Texas would win 74-71.

The ball went to Kenton Paulino. He shot from about four feet behind the line. The WVU defender is right there...and the ball goes in. Are you kidding me?

Afterwards, this was the scene. This is the kind of stuff that makes you wish teams didn't have to lose.


West Virginia's Johannes Herber, left, hugs teammate Patrick Beilein in the locker room following West Virginia's 74-71 loss to Texas.

Thick Irony
After watching the thrilling ending of the Texas game, I flicked on the TV to the other game. Gonzaga was up by nine with 3 minutes and change to go. I turned the game off. Gonzaga would go on to lose the game.


Gonzaga All-American Adam Morrison, the nation's leading scorer, collapses after his team blew a 17-point lead in the final minutes of their game against UCLA