Saturday, March 22, 2008

Marquette vs. Kentucky

The best part of this MU team is knowing that when one of the big name guys has an off night, the rest of the team has the ability to pick up the slack. We saw that throughout the season when Dominic James struggled/was injured and we saw it during this game when Wesley Matthews struggled from the field going just 2 of 10.

Of course, he also proved that being cold from the floor didn't mean he was giving up and put the game on ice as he was fouled 4 times and hit 8 of the free throws.

David Cubillan has also been extremely cold in the most important part of the season. He's been 2 of 18 and just 1 of 13 from three point land, his specialty, in the post season.

The strangest fact of this game is that MU vs Kentucky is the most played match-up in NCAA history with Thursday being the tenth. Until they told us that 15 times during the game, might have been one hell of trivia question.

The other bits of trivia from this game are that it was the first opening round game Kentucky has lost since 1987 and the first one we'd won since the D-Wade led team that made it to the Final Four.

And the absolute biggest story of the game was Kentucky's Joe Crawford, who had an absolutely stunning 35 points. He played 39 minutes, sitting just 1 minute in the first half. The kid put on a one man show and single handedly kept Kentucky in the game. He also had 5 rebounds and 2 assists.

My favorite moment of the game came in the waning seconds when Dominic James went over and shook Crawford's hand. It was a classy move on James' part to acknowledge this kid's accomplishments before he celebrates the win.

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