NCAA Mens Basketball 2008-2009 Season + Tourny

[Biddinger]

Apparently UNC has joined Duke in pursuing John Wall. Dicks...

[Tyche]

Louisville are holding their own thus far in this game. Playing the underdog roll pretty well. Hopefully they don't pull a MSU and make a game out of it. C'MON LADIES!

[Headspace]

Yeah it's not looking so hot.

[Ksandra]

can't find it live on teh internets ;_;

[BarthelloSylph]

Replay of the title game on CBS's College Sports Network. I'm putting together some pics as we speak.

[BarthelloSylph]

OK here we go...

EDIT: Alright, it worked!

The first pic is the bar at which we watched the game - Four Corners. Great atmosphere.

The next four pictures are Franklin Street afterward. The Top of the Hill pic was taken from the middle of Franklin. Someone tore down the Columbia Street sign and people were crowd surfing on it. The final Franklin Street picture was taken from one end - you still can't see the full extent of it. It was amazing.

The next four pictures are from the rally today. They put the score on the scoreboards, and had a video clip of our season with the One Shining Moment in the background. I've got pictures of our retired/honored jerseys and the championship banners - both of which need updating The monitors showed the team arriving at the airport, busing in, and finally everyone came on the stage. Roy was last and brought the trophy with him. The chancellor talked, then the seniors one by one. Danny danced for us Then Roy closed the ceremony down.

The final picture is the Smith Center as seen right outside my apartment building. I took it as I came home from class after the ceremony. I like the pic.

[Arvin]

Hahah awesome. That looks like a good time, are they ripping out a street sign?


Where are the burning couches? :D Come on!

[Ksandra]

ST. LOUIS (AP) — With one final blowout, UConn grabbed the national title and a piece of basketball history.

Tina Charles had 25 points and grabbed 19 rebounds Tuesday night as UConn routed Louisville 76-54 and captured the Huskies' sixth national championship.

It wasn't just that Connecticut claimed another title. It was how they did it.

UConn won every one of its 39 games by double digits, an unprecedented run in college basketball.

Charles was the star of the last big win. She commanded both ends of the floor and Louisville, which lost to UConn for the third time this season, had no one who could stop her.

Coach Geno Auriemma had said before the tournament that his junior center would be the key to UConn winning the title. A year after he benched her in the NCAAs for inconsistent play, Charles delivered.

She was 11-for-13 from the field, and fell just one rebound short of becoming only the second player ever in a championship game to have at least 20 points and 20 rebounds. Charles was named the outstanding player of the Final Four.

Maya Moore and Renee Montgomery each added 18 points for the Huskies.

Angel McCoughtry finished off her stellar career for Louisville with 23 points. Candyce Bingham was the only other Cardinal in double figures with 10 points as Louisville (34-5) shot a dismal 31 percent from the floor.

hmm winning every game by double digits. Needs MOAR challenges.

[Akiyama]

UConn's women's team is fucking ridiculous. I don't watch Women's Basketball (lol), but I did watch some of this, and they are quite impressive.

[BarthelloSylph]

Hahah awesome. That looks like a good time, are they ripping out a street sign?


Where are the burning couches? :D Come on!

Yea, they tore down a street sign - Columbia is what it says, Columbia and Franklin is the main intersection in Chapel Hill.

Unfortunately (or fortunately) the cops have gotten very good at controlling Franklin Street celebrations, and they block off all the entries to Franklin - preventing anyone from bringing anything from outside, in. That being said, for the dook win earlier in the year, someone somehow grabbed a dead christmas tree from a frat house... huge explosion when that hit the fire. I was really surprised people didn't get seriously hurt, lol.

Finally - my thoughts on the game:

When watching the game the first time, it seemed to me as if it was fairly close throughout, and the plays that stand out to me where the times where we silenced rallies, or our players made stupid plays - Green's third foul, Green's bad pass turnover, Hansbrough's goaltending. I thought that our defensive intensity was phenomenal - I hadn't seen them play defense like that all year. We gave up almost none of the stupid baskets that we seem to give up every game. When MSU hit shots, they were tough shots, generally with people in their face. I also felt like we only gave MSU one shot every trip, we seemed to get the rebounds especially during our runs. As was the case with most of our impressive games this year, we had great runs in which we scored quickly, played great defense, and boxed out. As with EVERY tournament game, we had a run to start out the game, and like in EVERY tourney game except LSU, the other team did not recover. The first half was about as perfect as we could have played, period.

The second half we obviously lost (38-34), but I liked the way we played for the most part - we ran clock and had mini-runs when MSU got a few baskets. We didn't rebound as well, we gave up a lot of FTs and turned it over a bunch. When it got down to 13 with 4:58 I remember being very, very nervous, but Lawson and Hansbrough got the lead back up to 19. Hansbrough hugging Roy when he came out with 1 minute left is something I'll always remember. I'll also remember Bobby's steal and layup - that guy deserves it for all the adversity he's gone through. Lawson's layup when the lead got down to 13... clinched it for us. For a game that was not nearly as good as the 2005 title game, it still had some good moments.

When I watched the replay last night, I actually got bored watching. Didn't realize it was such a blowout. Congrats to MSU on such a great run in the tourney, it was obviously inspiring to many people in Michigan. MSU will be a force to be reckoned with next year.

My final thoughts on the season...

We ended up where we started. I've been a UNC fan since 1990 (when I was 8 and started following my dad's alma mater), and I've seen many, MANY great UNC teams end up short. To see a team that seemed destined for greatness realize their dreams of a title was awesome. People thought we would go unbeaten (and began to buy in when we beat MSU by 35), that shit will never, ever happen again in men's basketball. To go unbeaten, you have to have a large gap between your team and the rest of the field - so that even when you play bad, you still win because you are just that much better. I will always believe that UNC was the best team this year, but the gap was not large enough to allow us to win when we played bad games against good teams. Now, had we had Ginyard this year (a starter for us), had Zeller, Hansbrough, Lawson been healthy all year, had Graves not gotten suspended - who knows what could have happened. But we won a title, and that's all that matters.

Next year will be a lot of fun - no expectations, new players to get to know and love. But right now I'll enjoy our title and be proud to be a Tar Heel, born and bred.

[Mizango]

Apparently UNC has joined Duke in pursuing John Wall. Dicks...

Poor Dukies, always playing the second fiddle. You realize he's as good as ours right? lol

[Sanoske]

UConn's women's team is fucking ridiculous. I don't watch Women's Basketball (lol), but I did watch some of this, and they are quite impressive.

I think their average margin of victory was like... 32 pts? That's just insanity.

[Ksandra]

UConn's women's team is fucking ridiculous. I don't watch Women's Basketball (lol), but I did watch some of this, and they are quite impressive.

I think their average margin of victory was like... 32 pts? That's just insanity.

I remember reading that Geno has them do mock games with the boy's team to practice, and have won a few. I think this has trained them to shoot higher than normal, which helps prevent ball blockage. It's pretty insane. Still makes me miss Taurasi though, she was amazing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQMp9811ECc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPywHcvseq4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cr8yDYZaa3w

Usually hate women's sports but when it comes to Uconn and to Taurasi they give a good show. XD

[Tyche]

No offense to women's basketball and the women's UCONN program, but if they were beating the men in a mock game, it's because the towell boys were playing in their place. If the UCONN women played all four 16 seeds in this years men's tourney, I don't think they'd have a snowball's chance in hell of winning even one. Maya Moore, who is arguably one of the greatest female basketball player of all-time, wouldn't get a sniff at a men's powerhouse program.

[Ksandra]

No offense to women's basketball and the women's UCONN program, but if they were beating the men in a mock game, it's because the towell boys were playing in their place. If the UCONN women played all four 16 seeds in this years men's tourney, I don't think they'd have a snowball's chance in hell of winning even one. Maya Moore, who is arguably one of the greatest female basketball player of all-time, wouldn't get a sniff at a men's powerhouse program.

I agree, however by practicing against the men's team makes they pretty hard to beat against the women's teams. I think it's only once in a blue moon they won, and I think that only happened during Tarausi's rein, though I know they still practice against them to this day to make them higher shooters.

[Biddinger]

GG, wall is committing to Kentucky