Just a wonderful game which didn’t have the ending I was hoping for, but still a fabulous national championship game.
Consider this, last year Virginia as the No. 1 seed in the entire tournament lost in the first round to a No. 16 seed for the first time in tournament history. Then consider this, just several weeks ago–a Texas Tech team which was a pre-season pick to finish seventh in the Big 12 was beaten in the first round of the Big 12 post season tournament by last place West Virginia.
This tournament had everything for me as a fan of the game. I needed it after watching the Oklahoma City Thunder loaf during most of this basketball season. I wanted to see basketball players compete since at the NBA level in the regular season you don’t know how much of that you’re going to see night in and night out.
This tournament from the Sweet 16 to the national championship game on Monday had everything and was topped off by a Virginia victory over Texas Tech in overtime by a 85-77 count.
It came down to the two stars in reality. DeAndre Hunter drained a three near the end of the regulation to save Virginia—while Jarret Culver’s last second attempt was blocked sending the game to overtime.
DeAndre Hunter was the MVP with a 27 point, 8 rebound night and carried the Cavaliers in the second half and thru the overtime.
Give Virginia all the credit in the world—they survived Purdue, Auburn and Texas Tech when it appeared they were headed for defeat in all three of these games.
And give Chris Beard and Texas Tech a ton of credit as well. This was supposed to be a rebuilding year in Lubbock and the rebuild came up just one stop short of a first ever national basketball championship in Lubbock.
I have no idea what Chris Beard does at this point given he’s now the ‘it’ coach on the national stage of college basketball. As a Big 12 fan I hope he stays at Tech, but some big names will probably be coming at him with some intriguing coaching offers.
I hope he stays. He’s a blue collar type coach and Lubbock is a blue collar college town. I spent a New Years Eve there once the year OU played Boise in the Fiesta Bowl and it’s a different place. But I hope he stays.
I’m sad. Now it’s back to watching the uninterested Oklahoma City Thunder play two more regular season games and then a first round playoff series.
It’s a good thing I love the Masters and the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
Maybe the Thunder will surprise me and show they somewhat care. Good luck with that, right?