Well, well, well–they did it again. Mississippi State’s men’s basketball team knocked off yet another top 10 opponent. After opening up the Southeastern Conference season with a 74-69 overtime win against sixth-ranked Kentucky, the Bulldogs picked up their fifth SEC win by virtue of a 14-point win over the fifth-ranked Alabama Crimson Tide. The second people start to doubt the Bulldogs, they shock everyone. The second people think MSU is heading for the National Invitational Tournament, they do something to put themselves back in the race for the NCAA Tournament. They simply will not go away.
The ‘Dawgs are back to .500 in the SEC. They’ve already tied last season’s win total, and they have a very good chance to win the rest of their regular season games, which would put them at 24-6 and 11-5 in the conference. At this point, with the wins that State has piled up, and assuming they do finish 24-6, they could find themselves with a bye in the first round of the SEC tournament and playing either Georgia, Florida or Kentucky in the quarterfinals. I know, not exactly a fun matchup with any one of those teams, but, it’s tournament time–anything can happen.
A couple of fun facts were brought to my attention this weekend. The last time that MSU beat Auburn on the road was in the 1995-96 season. State won at Auburn 72-64 this year. The last time State beat two top 10 teams in one season was also 1995-96. Already State has beaten No. 6 Kentucky and No. 5 Alabama. In case you were wondering what the big deal about the 1995-96 season is–the Bulldogs went to the Final Four that year. That team featured NBA star Erick Dampier and Dontae Jones, but no one thought they would go that far. Besides, who’s to say that Mario Austin and Marckell Patterson aren’t the 2001-2002 version of Dampier and Jones? Every weekend in college basketball there seems to be some general theme to the endings of all the games. One week it might be a plethora of upsets and the next week might feature road teams winning games. This weekend the theme was overtime. Quite a few games went into an extra session, some went into double overtime and one game featured four overtimes. Georgetown and Notre Dame battled in the 60-minute classic, with the Irish finally escaping with the 116-111 win. What makes the loss worse for Georgetown is the fact that the same player (Kevin Braswell) had a chance to win the game in each overtime. Talk about an adrenaline rush for the weekend.
OK, enough about basketball. It’s Winter Olympics time. Yes, the winter games have started again, but did anyone here notice? I know I did. To tell the truth though, all I’ve been looking forward to is the hockey portion. I’m a big hockey fan, and it would make my year to see the United States win a gold medal.
You didn’t even have to be a hockey fan to appreciate the opening ceremonies Friday night. The Olympic cauldron was lit by none other than the 1980 U.S. hockey team. What’s so special about them? Well, the 1980 games were held in Lake Placid, N.Y., and the hockey team was made up of high school and college players who really were not even good enough to play in the NHL. When it was time to face the Russians, no one gave the Americans a chance. The Russians owned the ice–they knew it, and the Americans knew it. But on that night, the Russians fell. Mike Eruzione scored the game-winning goal in what became known as “The Miracle on Ice.” The United States eventually beat Finland in the gold medal game to capture the most improbable run in sports history.
Maybe it’s foreshadowing what is to come this year. The Americans do have a chance to win gold this year, but not a very good one. The Canadian team is loaded as always but hasn’t won gold in 50 years, and the Russians are, well, the Russians.
Teams can count out the Americans again, but they should remember that history repeats itself.