Mar 13 2009
Uconn and Syracuse Battle to the End
The Big East tournament in college basketball is currently going on in Madison Square Garden in New York. There was a good match up on the schedule for Thursday; when the number 3 team in the country Connecticut going against the number 18 team in college basketball Syracuse. There was no reason to believe that this game had anything special about it, other than it was two top 20 teams competing against each other. After the smoke had clear and a winner was found from this college basketball game, people would be left wondering if this was the best college basketball game ever.
I have seen many great games in sports over the years, but I’m not sure any of them would top the college basketball game played in Madison Square Garden on March 12, 2009. You can look at any team sport or individual sport and find great match ups and games over the years. I know Magic Johnson and Larry Bird had many historic battles in their careers in basketball. The Bird/Magic matchups started in college and the 1980’s was filled with Larry’s Celtics and Magic’s Lakers playing for NBA championships. Their famous battle in college doesn’t even come close to the comparison of the Uconn and Syracuse game.
The game was close throughout and it was hard to tell who would win this one. As the last seconds of regulation ticked off the clock, a Syracuse Orangeman player knocked down a 3 point shot from the right wing. The score was all tied up at this point and this shot would have gave Syracuse the win over Uconn. Since the shot came very close to the buzzer, the officials decided to have another look at this critical basket. It was this 3 point shot that would determine if overtime was needed or if the Syracuse team would advance in the Big East tournament. It took a very close look to determine if the player had released the ball in time or not. You could see the basketball just barely touching the player’s finger when the last second left the clock. The shot was called no good by the referees and now the two Big East teams prepared of an overtime session.
Going to overtime in college basketball is something that happens often, so at this point it really wasn’t a big deal. After the first overtime was played and a winner hadn’t been found yet, since the teams were still tied, a 2nd overtime had to be played. A double overtime college basketball game is pretty rare, but even that wasn’t enough time for a team to take the lead in this one. Now the Uconn and Syracuse matchup becomes a triple overtime game and it starts to enter the realm of all the other triple overtime games ever played in college basketball. However, the 3rd overtime was as successful as the first two were and still no winner in this Big East match up. A 4th overtime didn’t work either and the teams had to enter a 5th overtime session! You don’t get 5 overtime periods in any sport and you never see this in college basketball. Now the game between these two exhausted teams was special, but it got even more special when the time expired in the 5th overtime and the score remained tied. This Big East tournament game between Connecticut and Syracuse would need 6 overtimes to see which team would advance in the tournament.
The first 5 overtimes ended in ties with each team scoring 10 points in the first overtime, 6 points in the 2nd overtime, 11 points in the 3rd overtime, 6 points in the 4th and 5th overtimes. Uconn only manage to score 7 points in the sixth overtime and Syracuse would win this incredible game with a 17 point performance in the last overtime. The final score showed Syracuse with 127 points and Connecticut with 117. The final score would suggest an easy win for Syracuse, but this was not easy in any way.
This game will be remembered for a long time and will be known as an historic matchup in the years, decades, and centuries to come. It took 3 hours and 46 minutes to play this game. It lasted so long, that it really took two days to play. The tip off came on March 12, but wouldn’t end until Friday March 13th at 1:22 AM eastern time. The fans from both schools will always remember the 6 overtimes it took to settle this one. The players and coaches involved in this game will never forget it either.
The player that will be best known from this game is Jonny Flynn. He ran the show for Syracuse for 67 of the 70 minutes this game took to play. He was also the leading scorer with 34 points. Many may forget that Jonny Flynn had 11 assists and 6 steals in this game or the fact he was perfect from the free throw line going 16 of 16 there. They will remember he led an exhausted Syracuse team over over the 3rd ranked team in the nation. His comments after the game where he stated that he couldn’t even feel his legs right now, will be something that college basketball fans remember for a long time too. Friday the 13th is a great day for the men in orange and their 6 overtime victory is the greatest game I have ever seen or heard about.
