If you tune to the Turner family of networks in the next four weeks, you can’t help but see “A Christmas Story” playing a couple hundred times. And there’s that one scene where Ralphie does something stupid, I can’t remember what it was, but it all unfolds in slow motion and he utters a fake expletive as it’s happening. And that’s exactly how a last-second half-court heave from Sean Dockery played out in my world. The minute he launched it things didn’t look quite right. Everybody acted like it had a chance. And as it descended, it was headed right for the hoop. And that’s when the word began to leave my mouth. You see, when you root for a team, as I do, that has won exactly five NCAA tournament games in its history, well, beating the #1 team at their place, and finishing the game with an 12-0 run to do it, is something you don’t dream up. And I don’t think #1 teams imagine winning a game on a desperation shot against a team picked for 8th in their conference, either.<\/p>\n
OK, enough of the self-pity. Who do you think was most happy to see that shot go down?
\na)<\/b> Coach K. After milking the shot clock with unsuccessful results for the final three minutes, this would have been a rare case where he would have coached himself into a loss.
\nb)<\/b> Texas coach Rick Barnes. Duke faces #2 Texas this Saturday and maybe they won’t be as ornery as they would have been had they lost as 21 point favorites to the Hokies.
\nc)<\/b> Rick Pitino. For knowing that even if you assign a player to guard the inbounds, Duke can go the length of the court in two seconds and turn defeat into victory.<\/p>\n
I know I promised a little something on the possession stats for today, but I’ll do it tomorrow when I’m thinking more clearly.<\/p>\n
Lines o’ the Night<\/b><\/u><\/p>\n
Friday<\/b><\/p>\n If you’re getting your mid-majority<\/a> fix on the weekends, then you already know about Virgil. Hey, don’t feel bad, Stanford. It’s hard to go into Big Sky arenas and get wins<\/a>.<\/p>\n Saturday<\/b><\/p>\n By my count, the first triple-double of the season, and against the cross-town rival no less.<\/p>\n Sunday<\/b><\/p>\n It was probably past your bed time, but Adam Morrison posted 43 again, this time is a loss against Washington. Derek Raivio left the game early with an injury.<\/p>\n Thanks to all the people that are sending me their nominations for this feature. Just because I don’t pick yours doesn’t mean I hate you or anything. I’ve had some good ones sent my way, so keep ‘em coming.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" If you tune to the Turner family of networks in the next four weeks, you can’t help but see “A Christmas Story” playing a couple hundred times. And there’s that one scene where Ralphie does something stupid, I can’t remember what it was, but it all unfolds in slow motion and he utters a fake […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kenpom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/748"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kenpom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kenpom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kenpom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kenpom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=748"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kenpom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/748\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kenpom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=748"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kenpom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=748"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kenpom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=748"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}} FG 3pt FT Reb\n Min M-A M-A M-A O-T A F S TO BLK Pts<\/b>\nVirgil Matthews 35 6-8 2-2 9-10 3-7 8 4 3 4 1 20\nResult: Win.<\/b> Montana 88, Stanford 69.<\/pre>\n
FG 3pt FT Reb\n Min M-A M-A M-A O-T A F S TO BLK Pts<\/b>\nKojo Mensah 44 5-10 2-6 8-10 4-14 11 1 1 3 1 20\nResult: Win.<\/b> Siena 82, Albany 74 (OT).<\/pre>\n
FG 3pt FT Reb\n Min M-A M-A M-A O-T A F S TO BLK Pts<\/b>\nShelden Williams 38 8-11 0-0 5-7 6-19 3 3 2 1 5 21\nResult: Win.<\/b> Duke 77, Virginia Tech 75.<\/pre>\n