Spring Break
A Thursday to remember in New York City
Kevin Meacham
Issue date: 3/16/09 Section: Sports
NEW YORK - If you were lucky enough - privilieged enough, even - to stay up until nearly 1:30 a.m. Thursday night watching Big East basketball, you don't need to be told what you witnessed. If you didn't stay up, you can't quite understand.
If you're a Syracuse fan, you probably spent the days immediately after the "MSG Marathon" in a state of delirium, like the three orange-wigged fellows who lurched around the World's Most Famous Arena around 4 a.m. Friday in search of a hot dog.
And if you're a UConn fan, you probably spent Friday afternoon in a catatonic trance.
When the shock of UConn's 127-117 loss to the Orange finally wore off sometime Saturday morning, I began to fully appreciate what had happened.
College basketball fans seem recognize that what happened on Thursday night was one of the greatest moments in the sport's history.
As I thought about it - and believe me, this game consumed most of the second half of my spring break - I began to think back to those little moments. They were subtle, and often were not caught by ESPN television cameras. But they were merely recollections of athletes giving their all in pursuit of victory.
There was Craig Austrie's exhausted glance in one of the later overtimes (I lost track of just about everything, score included, by overtime No. 3). His face expressed mental exhaustion, physical fatigue and dogged determination in one contortion of facial muscles.
And there was Jonny Flynn, Syracuse's beastly attacking guard who tore up UConn's Hasheem Thabeet-less defense over the final few overtime periods.
After teammate Paul Harris missed a pair of layups to end the fourth overtime, Flynn hurled his headband as far as he could into the crowd. Nearly out of energy - Flynn played 67 out of a possible 70 minutes - the guard summoned every ounce of strength to fling his headband in frustration. Not five more minutes. Anything but that.
And then there was, for a UConn fan, the most heartbreaking grimace of all. That belonged to A.J. Price, he of the 33-point, 10-assist effort.
One year after an ACL injury sidelined him and derailed UConn's NCAA Tournament chances, Price realized late in the sixth overtime that a win just would not happen on this night.
Two hours earlier, the contemptible Eric Devendorf had seemingly driven the stake into UConn's heart with an utterly amazing buzzer-beating 3-pointer. The shot would have lived forever, like Christian Laettner's jumper for Duke against Kentucky in 1992, or (to be somewhat blasphemous) Tate George's shot against Clemson in 1990.
But the replay showed Devendorf's hangnail barely clinging to the ball as the red buzzer lights glared. So Price was
If you're a Syracuse fan, you probably spent the days immediately after the "MSG Marathon" in a state of delirium, like the three orange-wigged fellows who lurched around the World's Most Famous Arena around 4 a.m. Friday in search of a hot dog.
And if you're a UConn fan, you probably spent Friday afternoon in a catatonic trance.
When the shock of UConn's 127-117 loss to the Orange finally wore off sometime Saturday morning, I began to fully appreciate what had happened.
College basketball fans seem recognize that what happened on Thursday night was one of the greatest moments in the sport's history.
As I thought about it - and believe me, this game consumed most of the second half of my spring break - I began to think back to those little moments. They were subtle, and often were not caught by ESPN television cameras. But they were merely recollections of athletes giving their all in pursuit of victory.
There was Craig Austrie's exhausted glance in one of the later overtimes (I lost track of just about everything, score included, by overtime No. 3). His face expressed mental exhaustion, physical fatigue and dogged determination in one contortion of facial muscles.
And there was Jonny Flynn, Syracuse's beastly attacking guard who tore up UConn's Hasheem Thabeet-less defense over the final few overtime periods.
After teammate Paul Harris missed a pair of layups to end the fourth overtime, Flynn hurled his headband as far as he could into the crowd. Nearly out of energy - Flynn played 67 out of a possible 70 minutes - the guard summoned every ounce of strength to fling his headband in frustration. Not five more minutes. Anything but that.
And then there was, for a UConn fan, the most heartbreaking grimace of all. That belonged to A.J. Price, he of the 33-point, 10-assist effort.
One year after an ACL injury sidelined him and derailed UConn's NCAA Tournament chances, Price realized late in the sixth overtime that a win just would not happen on this night.
Two hours earlier, the contemptible Eric Devendorf had seemingly driven the stake into UConn's heart with an utterly amazing buzzer-beating 3-pointer. The shot would have lived forever, like Christian Laettner's jumper for Duke against Kentucky in 1992, or (to be somewhat blasphemous) Tate George's shot against Clemson in 1990.
But the replay showed Devendorf's hangnail barely clinging to the ball as the red buzzer lights glared. So Price was
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