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Pretty amazing....
“Fatigue was definitely a factor at that point,” UConn All-America Kemba Walker said. “I usually won’t tell you guys I was tired, but I was.”
The finish line seemed as distant during that period as it had back when practice began on Oct. 15. The Huskies and Wildcats had traveled so far to reach the 2011 NCAA Final Four, and now it seemed the last part of the journey to the championship game never would end.
When it finally did, when Connecticut was safely into the final against the Butler Bulldogs on the strength of a 56-55 victory Saturday, the Huskies acknowledged their exhaustion and the UK players stiffly claimed they never were tired.
To the victor go the spoils, in this case the freedom to speak honestly.
“It was hard to breathe out there,” said UConn forward Roscoe Smith, and he played a mere 29 minutes. “Back-and-forth, back-and-forth … it was hard to breathe.”
Of all the elements that can affect the way a basketball game develops, this one turned on a most curious twist: no whistles. For six of the most crucial minutes Kentucky and Connecticut played, from the 8:30 mark of the second half until 2:09 remained, neither team did anything to merit a stoppage.
Nobody fouled. Nobody threw the ball out of bounds. Nobody traveled. Nobody cursed their way into a technical foul, and that certainly was a constant threat with Jim Calhoun above one bench and John Calipari the other.
And nobody was all that eager to call timeout, either, though each coach had a ready supply. It was as though neither coach wanted to yield, acknowledge his players were exhausted. Let the other guy appear weak.
Because the whistle didn’t blow, the customary media timeouts -- at the first stoppage after the 8-minute mark, and at the first stoppage following the 4-minute mark -- weren’t taken until the game traveled inside the final 130 seconds. The only stoppages were a couple of 30-second timeouts, one by each team.
Not a lot occurred during those six-plus minutes. It wasn’t a dizzying, end-to-end, basket-for-basket sequence. It mostly was a festival of 3-pointers that caught the front rim, especially by the Wildcats.
UK missed seven consecutive shots, a lot of them jumpers that barely reached the front rim.
The finish line seemed as distant during that period as it had back when practice began on Oct. 15. The Huskies and Wildcats had traveled so far to reach the 2011 NCAA Final Four, and now it seemed the last part of the journey to the championship game never would end.
When it finally did, when Connecticut was safely into the final against the Butler Bulldogs on the strength of a 56-55 victory Saturday, the Huskies acknowledged their exhaustion and the UK players stiffly claimed they never were tired.
To the victor go the spoils, in this case the freedom to speak honestly.
“It was hard to breathe out there,” said UConn forward Roscoe Smith, and he played a mere 29 minutes. “Back-and-forth, back-and-forth … it was hard to breathe.”
Of all the elements that can affect the way a basketball game develops, this one turned on a most curious twist: no whistles. For six of the most crucial minutes Kentucky and Connecticut played, from the 8:30 mark of the second half until 2:09 remained, neither team did anything to merit a stoppage.
Nobody fouled. Nobody threw the ball out of bounds. Nobody traveled. Nobody cursed their way into a technical foul, and that certainly was a constant threat with Jim Calhoun above one bench and John Calipari the other.
And nobody was all that eager to call timeout, either, though each coach had a ready supply. It was as though neither coach wanted to yield, acknowledge his players were exhausted. Let the other guy appear weak.
Because the whistle didn’t blow, the customary media timeouts -- at the first stoppage after the 8-minute mark, and at the first stoppage following the 4-minute mark -- weren’t taken until the game traveled inside the final 130 seconds. The only stoppages were a couple of 30-second timeouts, one by each team.
Not a lot occurred during those six-plus minutes. It wasn’t a dizzying, end-to-end, basket-for-basket sequence. It mostly was a festival of 3-pointers that caught the front rim, especially by the Wildcats.
UK missed seven consecutive shots, a lot of them jumpers that barely reached the front rim.
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