08 December 2007

Saturday Night Basketball

The only thing better than watching Arizona beat Oregon's #2 ranked football team on a Friday morning last month was watching Arizona beat the Illini basketball team late last night. I'll gladly stay up past my bedtime or roll out of bed at 3 in the morning if the 'Cats continue to make primetime Doha TV. Winning big games is even more important for those watching in Doha because Orbit ESPN only gets to pick one game to televise - last night they chose very wisely. Arizona has two comebacks in one week (A&M who?) - only this time in Chicago the game provided some much needed redemption after the tragic 2005 Elite Eight matchup against Illinois. With Jerryd Bayless as PTP the ‘Cats are playing better basketball than I’ve seen in 4 years… and the Pac-10 has risen to an elite level within college basketball. Free march madness tip – 2008 is the year that Arizona returns to the Final Four.

Stat of the game: Freethrow percentage (AZ 78% -- Illinois 46%)

Play of the game: Jerryd Bayless drives straight down the lane for a powerful dunk as two Illinois defenders stared in amazement (dig the new uni's - http://www.systemofdress.com/)

4 comments:

Tim Gwynn said...

The game was amazing, and there I was cheering at my house all by myself. (Could have use Brandon and some Bear Down Shooters!) I'm not superstitious, I am a little stitious, so I wisely did not call you during this Illinois game - last time, that was the worst experience of my life.

Brandon and Sheri said...

Hard to find the ingredients for a Bear Down Shooter here in Qatar... as I was staring at the TV with one minute left in overtime, I couldn't help but flashback to our elite eight phone call two years ago about buying final four shirts as we watched a 15 point lead evaporate in 4 minutes.

We wouldn't appreciate the good if we didn't experience the bad.

Matt said...

We didn't get to watch the game, but let's just say it is a house divided after a game like that.

Brandon and Sheri said...

Matt, I think this means an Arizona bib for Christmas Dinner (for Vanessa & Ava? )... glad that our house is fully aligned on the important things in life - like college basketball.