King Kaufman's Sports Daily
NCAA Tournament: In an incredible, indescribable, dazzling couple of days, Louisville, Illinois, North Carolina and Michigan State reach the Final Four.
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March 28, 2005 | Words are failing me after the four NCAA Tournament games Saturday and Sunday, so I've been making a list of the ones other people have been using to describe them.
Unbelievable. Electrifying. Breathtaking.
Saturday may have given us the greatest back-to-back games in college basketball history, a pair of impossible comebacks that became overtime thrillers. Louisville, once down by 20 to a West Virginia team that simply couldn't miss a shot, came back to force overtime, then win. It was the game of the year -- for about an hour. Then it was nothing, a curtain raiser.
In the nightcap, Illinois was down by 15 to Arizona with four minutes to play, roared back to send that game to overtime, then hung on to win with one last defensive stop.
Astonishing. Indescribable. Thrilling.
Sunday was more of the same. Not quite as good, but that's praising with faint damnation. Only the North Carolina win over Wisconsin wasn't a game for the time capsule, the only one of the four Elite 8 games not to go to overtime, not to feature a crazy, frantic finish or two, or three.
On any other weekend it would have been a terrific game, a tense battle of styles and a near upset of a top seed. On this weekend it was one to throw back. Merely a great game? You might try the tournament down the street. We hear they're looking for great games. Around here, we settle for nothing less than jaw-dropping.
Improbable. Amazing. Dazzling.
Kentucky sent its see-saw game with Michigan State into overtime on a buzzer 3-pointer by Patrick Sparks that bounced around the rim crazily, looking for all the world like a miss, right up to the moment it dropped through the hoop.
Officials rushed over to the scorer's table, as is their habit. At first it looked like a routine check to ensure that Sparks got the shot off in time, which he clearly had, but wait, that's not what they were looking at.
Sparks had launched a 3-pointer over Matt Trannon from straight away with about eight seconds left, but Trannon got a hand on the shot and it fell short. Kentucky's Kelenna Azubuike grabbed the air ball, raced to the right corner, turned and launched a three with about four seconds left. Michigan State fans must have felt like time had ground to a halt. Was it really taking this long for those last few seconds to go by?
Azubuike's shot hit the front rim and bounced out to Sparks, still standing near the top of the key. He fielded the ball behind the arc, took a half-step forward with his right foot and elevated. Spartan Kelvin Torbert had been chasing the loose ball. Now he went up with Sparks, bumping him, then raising his arms in the international signal for "I know I just committed a foul, please don't call it."
The ball left Sparks' hand with 0.8 seconds remaining. It hit the front rim, slid to the back iron and popped in the air, hitting the backboard on the way up. Then it landed on the front rim again, hop, hop, hopped along the left side of the hoop toward the back and, finally, gently, settled its way down the drain.
Next page: The toe on the line? Plus: Deron Williams' big stop for Illinois. And: Pool o' Experts standings