Well Done

Unless Pitt can (somehow) win the Big East tournament, they probably won't be any higher than a 7 seed in the NCAAs, but if you missed their game against Syracuse on ESPN yesterday, you missed something special. It was truly one of the most perfect final 3-1/2 minutes of basketball a team could possibly play... They were down by 11 and went on an 18-2 run... An EIGHTEEN to TWO run! This was no junior high basketball game. It wasn't like Buckwheat was coaching the other team. It was a Jim Boeheim coached Syracuse team which was so very much on the NCAA tournament bubble that they essentially had their entire season to lose. As it stands now, they may never forgive Pitt.

Ron Cook, in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, made a very interesting observation about the 2007/08 Pitt men's basketball team in the wake of this game. He didn't go so far as to say that they're the type of team that people should be talking about this year, but that's the conclusion I drew from his article. Not because they're better than all the rest (because they're clearly not the most talented team), but because of the character displayed by the players and coaches.

I liked the idea because it made me recognize the fact that Pitt doesn't really belong in the conversation when you're talking about the truly "elite" teams in college basketball this year while at the same time thinking that this is the type of team that can be an inspiration unto itself come tournament time. Think of the movie "Hoosiers" or, on a slightly less dramatic scale, Villanova, circa 1986.

Levance Fields is returning to form in time for the tournaments and there's a lot of good basketball left to go. Let's raise a toast to hope that the Pitt men don't back themselves into a situation where they need to come back from eleven points down in the final minutes of a game again this year. However, it's at least nice to know they're capable of doing so... if need be... God help us.

Ambition is a List in Baltimore

So there's a public radio station in Baltimore that actually plays music (with NPR news podcasts on the hour). It's awesome because they don't have commercial breaks, the dj's just have to take a few seconds between songs to recognize corporate sponsors. A few months ago they asked listeners to submit their top ten favorite albums of all time so they could compile a countdown to coincide with their February fund drive. Last year, they did something similar and had listeners vote for their top ten songs of all time. The result of all these submissions is a list of the top 897 -- last year - songs, this year - albums -- of all time. Why 897? Because WTMD is 89.7 on the dial and they can't very well present 7/10 of a song (maybe an album) on the radio.

Last year, the songs countdown took the commitment of 9 days of radio programming... this year, the albums countdown took the entire month... and it's a LEAP YEAR!

The list of 897 albums is interesting (5 of the albums I voted for made the top 20... ahem) but explain to me how, and I may have glossed over others, only one Van Halen album made it and how that one album (Van Halen - Van Halen) is as low as #280? How does "1984" not make this list? I can't be the only person who voted for it!!!