It’s January in college basketball. The trailers are over from the early season games and now the movie has started. Conference play. Time for the bizarre and unique, and the moments when fate can suddenly change as if it slipped on the ice in the parking lot outside.
Time for nights like Tuesday.
The night when…
Kansas could be down to TCU by 15 points with four and a half minutes left, still trail by nine with 61 seconds to go, and end up with a victory in overtime. Freshman Darryn Peterson, who had just returned to the game after cramping issues, stood serenely at the line and buried three free throws with 1.7 seconds left to force overtime and Kansas eventually won 104-100. Peterson’s 32 points included 13 free throws. The entire TCU team made 15. It was only the 13th time in Division I history a team had been behind by 15 points inside of five minutes and won.
The rally saved the Jayhawks some infamy. They could easily have been 0-2 in the Big 12. They hadn’t started 0-2 in league play in 43 years. “The best thing that potentially happened tonight was we became a team,” coach Bill Self said afterward. “That’s the best thing that potentially happened, but it remains to be seen if we are.”
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Poor TCU. The 11-4 Frogs have lost by four, four, two and four points — two of those in overtime — and had the lead or the chance to take it in the last 30 seconds of regulation in all of them. And what do they get as a reward for such a frustrating night? No. 1 Arizona on Saturday. “This can’t kill us, this has got to make us better,” coach Jamie Dixon said. “Learn from our mistakes, which we intend to.”
The night when…
Penn State came into the evening having lost four of five — including by 41 points to Indiana and 34 to Pittsburgh — and without injured freshman guard Kayden Mingo, who was leading the team in scoring, and rebounding, and assists, and steals. The Nittany Lions were facing unbeaten Michigan, putting up 97 points a game and winning by an average of 30. How ugly could it get?
Not ugly at all. The Wolverines escaped 74-72 and Penn State had a chance to win in the end. It inspired a post-game soliloquy from Nittany Lions coach Mike Rhoades.
“I’m pissed. I’m not dejected. I didn’t come here to do this bulls—. I want to win, and I don’t care if it’s a one-point game or a 30-point game. I’ve been coaching long enough, and we all go through this, but I want to win, and I want these guys to win.
“I didn’t sign up for this. I don’t want to do this. I’m here, though, and we’re going to figure it out… I’m not dejected. I don’t get dejected, I hate losing. I freaking hate it. I don’t want us to ever be like, ‘Being close is OK.’ Screw that. We didn’t come here to be close. Our guys showed something today. I’m sure everybody at Penn State’s proud of it, but let’s do more, let’s figure it out, let’s keep building on it.”
The night when…
Georgetown led DePaul 35-32 at halftime. Then the Hoyas took 23 shots in the second half — and missed 22 of them. One field goal in the half tied an NCAA record low in the shot clock era, and DePaul eased past to win 56-50, the fewest points the Blue Demons scored in a win in 16 years.
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“That was a rock fight,” DePaul coach Chris Holtmann said. “I’ve coached for a long time. Never had a half like that.”
The night when…
Defending national champion Florida was starting to hear questions about what might be wrong, having vanished from the Associated Press rankings after starting the season at No. 3 and then going 9-5.
Turned out there’s nothing much wrong with the Gators. Not Tuesday night, anyway. Georgia arrived in Gainesville with a 13-1 record and the highest-scoring offense in the nation at 99 points a game. Florida crunched the Bulldogs in rebounding 56-35, ran past them in fast break points 35-10 and held them 22 points under their average. It was a one-point game at halftime but ended 92-77. And who was there to chat up the Gators in the locker room afterward but Urban Meyer, the man responsible for a couple of Florida national championships using another shaped ball.
“Tonight was a game that we needed,” coach Todd Golden said. “We just kind of talked about it at halftime, it’s got to be now. The time is now for us to step up against a good team in a big moment and find a way to get to the finish line.”
Alas, Florida still can’t hit the ocean from the beach on the perimeter. The Gators were 6 for 25 in 3-pointers and their 27.7 percentage from behind the arc for the season is 357th in the nation. Won’t be easy to repeat doing that.
The night when…
St. John’s had to find out if this was a crisis or not. The Red Storm’s No. 5 spot was their highest ranking in the AP preseason poll in school history. They were picked to win the Big East. The new haul of transfers was nationally renowned. What could go wrong?
But by Tuesday night St. John’s was 9-5 and not receiving a single vote in the AP poll, and Rick Pitino had sounded the alarm after a home loss to Providence the past weekend.
“Now our backs are to the wall very early in the season.”
And…
“I said it all along we have high hopes but what I’m noticing right now is a team that has a lot of frailties.”
And…
“There’s not a team in this league that can’t beat us.”
But not Butler Tuesday night. The Red Storm juiced up the pressure defense and the turnover gap ended up 21-5, with St. John’s outscoring the Bulldogs 27-5 in points off turnovers. The final was 84-70 and Pitino was thinking maybe all those transfers were finally starting to mix correctly. A challenge in so many places these days.
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“I told them all week, look, I don’t care what the outside noise says. You’ve got to be like me, you’ve got to block it out,” he said. “I said I’ve got all the confidence in the world in every single guy on this basketball team… Do I wish we had more wins? I do. But it’s difficult. You never know what you’re going to have every year. It’s really difficult. There’s no continuity at all. This team has stuck together and they’re growing as a basketball team.”
The night when…
Duke was down 12 points in the first half at Louisville, where the Cardinals had come out in flames, making 10 of 21 from the 3-point line.
Then they shot 2 for 17 in the second half. The Blue Devils went from 12 down to winning by 11.
And maybe wildest of all, the night when…
Texas A&M was 16 points behind with 13:30 left at Auburn. In under five minutes, the Aggies were ahead. Five minutes after that, they were up 12. Three minutes after that the lead was back down to two and KeShawn Murphy appeared to win the game for Auburn with a buzzer-beating 3-pointer from near half court.
See the Tigers celebrate!
Except officials took a long look at the replay and decided it didn’t beat the buzzer after all.
See the Aggies celebrate!
So Texas A&M won 90-88 in a game where the home team blew a 16-point lead and the visiting team nearly blew a 12-point lead, and both teams hugged and cavorted on the court, thinking they had won. And all of that happened in the last 14 minutes.
Auburn coach Steven Pearl was in contact with the SEC office afterward about the flip on the call and said later, “I don’t have a clear understanding still.” He discussed the frantic last seconds a bit — “I’m not an official and I would never be an official because those guys have an impossible job” — but not for long. “I’ve got to get on to Arkansas,” he finally decided.
Conference play. You gotta love it.
