Hoyas Scrape the Tar Off Heels

Every year for the past 15 March Madnesses, I complete brackets against my brother and father for a Champion T-shirt and the bragging rights that it brings. This year my brother Andrew had the first ever perfect Elite 8 AND Final Four, very impressive, clinching victory before the last three games are even played. Andrew thinks in spreadsheets and has a deadly and unsentimental ability to divine winners, skills which have greatly contributed to my 3-12 lifetime record in the Reichman Pool. Andrew's latest victory has taken away some of the joy I would otherwise feel at picking 3 of the Final Four correctly this year, possibly for first time ever, with only Texas A&M betrtaying me. Furthermore my Hoyas-over-Bruins final outcome prediction still looks like a great call.

Most amazing of all were two emotional, nail-biting, come-from-behind Georgetown victories.
G'town advances past Vanderbilt on a clutch bank shot by Jeff Green in traffic with 10 seconds remaining. Green backed into the lane, almost lost the ball in a black-jerseyed haze of the Vandy double team, only to uncoil and go glass to put the Hoyas up. This after Hoyas had to gradually claw their way back from a big Commodores lead, as big 3s from Vandy's Byars and Foster forced all the time off the clock by the time the Hoyas were able to creep close.

And then, in the last game before the Final Four, the Meadowlands showdown between the Hoyas and UNC, won in incredible fashion by the Hoyas in a case of divine intervention. With the coffin lid closing on them, Georgetown showed Grind It Out heart and fearless determintaion coming from 11 down in the final 10 minutes to scrape the Tar right off the Heels of NC. A succession of good defensive plays by Green, Sapp and Hibbert kept allowing the Hoyas to shave UNC's lead, climaxed by Green's pass over the basket to a wide open Ewing Jr. for 2, and then the ultimate - Jonathan Wallace for three with 31 seconds and he cans it(!) tying the game at 81. In OT its off to the races as Wallace, the smallest player on the court, sneaks through the back door for two and the Hoyas never look back, going up 12 before the Heels get their only OT basket. The Heels Hansbrough, confounded by the swarming Hoya D loses concentration with traveling calls, missed foul shots and the Hoyas never blink steaming through to an almost unbelievable victory. The powder blue seas parted for G'town as just abourt everything that had to go right did over the last 10 minutes of the game and OT.