It seems crazy to talk about college basketball outside of March and early April, but I suppose it counts as news when the top-ranked team loses for the third week in a row — to the previous #1 team! Wow! Can you believe how wacky sports are?!?!?

Anyway. #4 Wake Forest toppled Duke 70-68 with a late layup from James Johnson, although you can barely glean that from the video, because the mongoloids in the booth are hardly capable of giving competent play-by-play and analysis. Oh yes, that’s right: Dick Vitale is calling a Duke game. You may want to take some preventive measures before listening to the clip, like puncturing your eardrums with an ice pick. You’ll thank me later.

Here’s another highlight from this weekend you may have missed if you don’t watch SportsCenter, as I don’t.  I’m not proud of that or anything, I’ve just gotten so used to absorbing sports through the Internet that a highlights show on TV takes way too long to get to whatever information I want to know.  What do you mean, after the commercial? I can’t wait that long!

Anyway.  Houston’s Aubrey Coleman casually walked on Chase Budinger’s face after Budinger took a charge near midcourt.  Coleman earned a flagrant foul and was ejected, while Arizona rallied from a 12-point deficit before winning in overtime.  The lesson being, don’t walk on anyone’s face.  Not for free, anyway.  You can make good money doing that.  You just have to find the right Craigslist ads.

[The Dagger]

UPDATE: Now in HD form.

This is Jarret Johnson of Anderson University (South Carolina), who takes advantage of a fast break to humiliate an opposing player from Coker College.  Snap-judgment-type people are already calling it the dunk of the year, because snap-judgment-type people need something to be more important than it really is, even if the college and NBA seasons are only halfway over, and March Madness and the NBA playoffs are still months away.

Luckily for that Coker kid, his name hasn’t hit the internet yet.  Imagine if every time you met a girl who was interested in you, then she went home and Googled you, and the first result was you getting air-walked over as someone threw it down in your face.  I’m not saying you wouldn’t get laid, but that’s a degree of difficulty I certainly don’t need.  It’s already hard enough out there for a sex offender, you know?

[Fan IQ]

Mark Titus (pictured, with a fan) is a junior guard for Ohio State who has logged one minute of playing time for the Buckeyes so far this season.  While he may not be All-America material on the court, his blog, Club Trillion, is easily the best athlete blog I’ve ever read.  That’s right — Rod Benson, Paul Shirley, even Gilbert Arenas: not as good.

I’ve spent a good chunk of my morning going through the archives, and here’s a typical passage, from the team’s intrasquad scrimmage in October:

I spent a majority of the scrimmage talking to two 8 year old kids… Drake and Jake explained to me that the funniest thing ever would be to put a Sweet Tart in my water bottle. I told them the funniest thing ever could probably be found on YouTube. Jake then told me that he has a locker room pass and I told him I wasn’t impressed in the slightest because I have a locker room pass too.

Anyway, without getting too rah-rah for Titus, I recommend checking out the whole blog.  It’s chockful o’ deadpan delivery, self-deprecating humor, and lobbying for the adoption of short-shorts.  And he’s even got excellent grammar and punctuation, which is way more than I’ve come to expect from an Ohio State student.  Or a blogger, for that matter.

(thanks to KSK reader Andy, who listened to the Bill Simmons podcast recommending this so I didn’t have to)

Cleveland State and #11 Syracuse fought each other down to the wire last night, and the underdog Vikings (in green) hit a miracle 60-foot prayer at the buzzer to score a 72-69 upset on ‘Cuse’s home court.

And yet, that’s not even my favorite part of the story.  At the post-game press conference, Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim got stuck with a dysfunctional mic that kept hitting him with piercing feedback.  And the video (after the jump) is truly excellent.

Read the rest of this entry »

Stephen Curry, the NCAA’s leading scorer, had a rough night from the field but found his groove in time to lead #23 Davidson past West Virginia in the Jimmy V Classic at Madison Square Garden.  Curry missed 12 of his first 13 three-point attempts, but heated up over the final five minutes, scoring 13 of Davidson’s final 15 points to finish with 27 in the 68-65 win.

Hmmm, looks like that whole “dominating the NCAA tournament” thing last spring wasn’t a fluke for Curry.  I guess I should probably learn where Davidson is one of these days.  **Googles Davidson** Huh.  North Carolina.  The Wildcats.  Learn something new every day.

NBA – It was apparently the best night of the NBA season so far. I may or may not have missed it entirely.  Whoops.

MLB – BREAKING!  CC Sabathia is reportedly signing a 7-year, $160M deal with the Yankees.  I don’t understand why it’s a big deal that this is breaking news.  Nobody else was going to pay that much, so it’s not a surprise.  And the season still doesn’t start until April.  So please pardon my dismissive wanking motion.