“Gregg Doyel of CBS Sports sums it up nicely: In its last five possessions, Duke mustered just one point, one air ball, and two turnovers.
” ‘That’s not winning a national championship,’ Doyel writes. ‘That’s finding a national championship.’ ”
“However, this is the second major championship in a row in American sports where there was a clear-cut underdog fan favorite (New Orleans Saints/Butler Bulldogs) and a squeaky-clean, stiff do-gooder looking to return to prominence (Indianapolis Colts/Duke Blue Devils). Maybe we just got spoiled with the Saints’ upset in the Super Bowl and started to think Butler could pull it out.”
After the game, the talking heads kept rambling on about what a “great” game it was and how it was “everything you could want from a national championship.”
Seriously? In the last nine or ten minutes of the game, Duke scored five points and Butler scored eight.
Now if that last-second shot had been about two inches shorter, THAT would have made it a great game. (And I was rooting for Duke!)
The talking heads care mostly that it be a contested game until the end, and it was that. They just don’t want us turning off the TV.
That last shot SHOULD have gone in. I blame the miss on all the recent earthquakes.
Okay, I went and checked the play by play.
In the last 10:24 of the game, there were:
16 missed shots
7 turnovers
9 fouls
and 5 two-point baskets made
That is not a great NCAA championship game. That is a great Boys 9 and under championship game.
Ha! “I blame the miss on all the recent earthquakes.”
The new ‘evil’ axis?
ha!