March Madness Should’ve Started Today, So Let’s Rewatch The All-Time Greatest Game Instead

Remember when the NBA first suspended their season and every sport followed suit right after? That was 3 years ago.

And now here we are, on the Thursday morning of when March Madness was supposed to tipoff, and we are without unpaid students playing basketball for our entertainment. It sucks. Doesn’t suck as bad for the guys who recently got vasectomy’s with absolutely nothing to watch as they ice their groins, but it still sucks.

I’m mad at myself mostly. I took a lot of sports for granted when they were on. But right now, I’d watch an entire Atlantic 10 Conference Tournament. Give me The Citadel vs. Colgate. I don’t care. Just give me some sort of competitive sport to watch. Please. Because I’m at the point right now where if the coronavirus doesn’t kill me, the insanity will.

I know many of you feel the same, so to help combat that, let’s watch a game together. And since we can choose what kind of game we watch, let’s watch the BEST game together. March 12, 2009. Syracuse vs. UConn. Madison Square Garden.

Now look, I know this is the Big East Tournament, not the NCAA Tournament, but this was back in the day when Big East basketball was SEC football. This was back when, in many years, the Big East Tournament was better than the actual NCAA Tournament. And this game is arguably one of the greatest college basketball games I have ever watched. So let’s watch it again. Together.

This video should start at the 1:26:20 mark, which joins the game with a 1:02 left in regulation. And trust me, just let it roll from there. You will watch one of the best endings to a college – or hell, any level – basketball game of all time.

This game lasted 3 hours, 46 minutes. It ended at 1:22 a.m. eastern. It featured a combined 244 points, 102 of which came after the regulation buzzer.

And one of the craziest things about this game? It was only a quarterfinal matchup. Syracuse was a 6-seed, and UConn was a 3-seed. And in the very next game, Syracuse took 7th seeded West Virginia to overtime and won. Meaning, in two games in back-to-back days, they played SEVEN overtimes. But then in the Big East final, they only played 40 minutes of basketball. Lame.

This game featured guys like the ironman Jonny Flynn (34 points and 11 assists in a game-high 67 out of 70 total minutes), the iron giant Hasheem Thabeet (19 pts, 14 boards and 6 of UConn’s 16 blocks), Kemba Walker (who was a little baby), and Gerry McNamara. Ok, not McNamera, he graduated three years prior. But he was the original Aaron Craft and Perry Ellis, where it felt like he was in college for 16 years, so it was worth a guess. Instead, this game gave us Eric “The Slum Lord” Devendorf, who had 22 points and hit the game winner… only to not be. But that scorer’s table celebration was enough to make him a legend.

Man, that was fun. I miss you, college basketball.