After being sick the past two days with the flu, it’s good to be back in the office. So while going through all my unread e-mail, I came across this. Amazing in it’s obscurity. I listen to a lot of music, but I’ve never heard of the band Owl City. Check out their music video for the song “Vanilla Twilight” with a very odd cameo from Shaq after the jump. Read More »

Beast of the Night: Trevor Ariza finished with 18 points, 3 threes, 8 rebounds, 8 assists, 3 steals, 1 block and 3 turnovers against the Clippers. He shot 35 percent (7-20) from the field and 33 percent (1-3) from the line. Ariza’s on a nice little roll right now, though his free throw shooting leaves something to be desired. Read More »

In case you missed the instant classic between K-State and Xavier last night, check out the highlights below.

All week long, it seemed the media was trying its hardest to will Cornell to an upset win over Kentucky. But by the end of the first night of Sweet Sixteen action, Butler was the underdog stealing the headlines. While Cornell had a good 3-4 minutes of magic in their pocket before John Wall and the Army of Blueness proceeded to trample them, Butler neutralized No. 1 seed Syracuse’s athletic advantage and picked apart the infamous 2-3 zone in a monumental upset … Isn’t Gordon Hayward (17 pts, 5 rebs, 2 stls) overdue for the “next Larry Bird” hype that guys like Keith Van Horn, Wally Szczerbiak and Adam Morrison typically get around this time? Read More »

When they were filling out their brackets, most people probably couldn’t have named three players from either team, but Xavier and Kansas State just played the best game of the NCAA Tournament.

It was close the entire way, and with six minutes to go in the second half you knew it was just getting real serious when Jordan Crawford hit a three that pulled Xavier within one and Gus Johnson had one of his trademark Gus-gasms (“OH! Ha-haaaaa!”). For all of crunch-time you basically had Xavier guards Crawford and Terrell Holloway trading clutch buckets with K-State’s backcourt of Jacob Pullen and Denis Clemente. Read More »

Two things struck me right away after Kentucky and Cornell had run a couple times up and down the floor: (1) The Wildcats are obscenely bigger, faster, more talented and more athletic. (2) And there’s really no way UK should lose this game.

But with an extremely pro-Cornell upstate New York crowd behind them, Big Red got out to a quick 10-2 lead. They had the formula for a March Madness upset down: forcing turnovers, taking charges, controlling the tempo, getting solid PG play, and hitting threes. Kentucky responded with a 12-0 run, then the game slowed to crippled snail’s pace until John Wall and Darius Miller threw down some transition dunks. At halftime it’s 32-16, Kentucky. Read More »

Jonny Flynn just tweeted the following about the big Syracuse/Butler upset:

For everybody solely placing the blame on 1 individual player #youreajoke it was jus 1 of the games where Butler was the better team tonight

We’re assuming that Jonny is referring to messages he’s getting on Twitter about the stretch run (and misses) from Scoop Jardin and/or the ZERO field goal attempts from Wesley Johnson in the last six minutes.

So who’s really to blame for the ‘Cuse collapse, if anybody? Read More »

You could tell Gus Johnson was waiting for this one all Tournament long. After Butler led No. 1 seed Syracuse by 10 at halftime and the ‘Cuse promptly rallied to make it a close ballgame in the second half, Gus was getting his “classic call” pipes warmed up.

“AND HOW ABOUT THIS? BUTLER! AGAIN!”

That was the capper as the final buzzer sounded and Butler knocked off the Orange, 63-59. Read More »

In the span of about four minutes, Deniz Kilicli might have become my favorite player in college basketball. Bob Huggins stuck the 6-9 freshman from Turkey into the game when it looked like West Virginia needed an injection of toughness against Washington, and the kid delivered.

“Who is that dude?” was the chorus around my apartment as soon as Kilicli — we’ve taken to just calling him “Klitschko” since then — checked in. “He looks like the mascot. He’s the Mountaineer!” was also overheard. Read More »

I’ve heard so many people predicting a Cornell-over-Kentucky upset this week, it almost seems like UK is the underdog. And lost amidst the Cornell hype was little ol’ Butler, who might be working on an upset of their own.

At halftime, the Bulldogs are up on #1-seed Syracuse by ten. According to Gus Johnson, the Orange’s biggest halftime deficit this year was five. Says Gus: “Butler is popping their collars!” Read More »