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Friday March 2nd, 2007
12:01amAgs Lose a Heartbreaker in Austin,
Acie Law is the most amazing freakin' athlete I've seen on campus since I arrived. You can go on and on about him but the only way you can describe him is clutch. And I don't mean that in the cliché "Derek Jeter is the most clutch player in the world but only because he gets more postseason opportunities to do it" way. Acie Law IS clutch.
Acie turns it up when it counts. Acie, on his own, averages more points than our opponents do in the final 5 minutes of the game. That is for the entire season. And don’t' forget his performance last year when he scored 12 points in the final 2:23 in our upset of Syracuse in the Tournament.
He hit "The Shot" against texas last season, then he hit the go-ahead long jump shot to take the lead against LSU in the Tourney with 18 seconds left (which would only be forgotten by "The Dagger"), then he hit "The Shot II" against KU this season, then turned around and hit a game tying 3-pointer with less than 3 seconds against tech, and then there was the game on Wednesday.
By the grace of only God and Law we took texas to overtime.
With the score 78-75 and only 1.1 seconds left we in-bounded and got the ball to Acie who hit a MONSTER 3-pointer over Durant that almost hit the rafters on it's way up. It's like he is some sort of super-human comic book character.
Overtime was unkind to us as we got down by 7 points. Without Carter or Joe Jones texas was able to focus a lot on Acie.
BUT....
With 26.3 seconds Acie ties it in OT at 88 with ANOTHER CLUTCH THREE! We're off to double overtime!
About half way through the second OT AK hit his second big 3 pointer as the shot clock expired to tie it up at 93. Yes, our 6'10" center hit two huge 3s.
The game essentially ended on a foul of Acie. He got past D.J. Augustin and was on his way down the court before Augustin caught up to him from behind and grabbed his jersey with both hands as Acie tried to heave up a long 3-pointer for the tie, as clear of an intentional foul as there could be. There was no intentional foul called, just a normal personal foul. The intentional foul would have given Acie two shots at the FT line and then we would have maintained possession.
Rule 4.26.6 from the 2007 NCAA Basketball Rulebook:
Augustin did exactly that.
Instead Acie went to the line shooting 2 FTs needing to miss the second and score on the rebound. He hit the first one and missed the second one but we couldn't get the shot off of the rebound to fall. Still, for the life of me, don't understand why he didn't get three free throws. He was fouled while he was shooting and he was behind the 3-point line. Is there a rule that I am unaware of?
Acie finished with 33 points and was followed by AK's 18 points and Josh Carter's 17 points.
I'm going to talk about the foul calling in general because the discrepancy between the teams was significant enough to be a huge part of the game. I don't think it was the main reason we lost but it certainly played a major role in the game. We were called for 28 fouls on Wednesday which was one higher than our 27 we were called for in the first texas game. Those two games were the highest and second highest foul totals that we've been whistled for during conference play (by a fairly good margin). In only one conference game was our opponent whistled for fewer fouls than texas's 17.
Josh Carter foul out, Joe Jones foul out, Dominique Kirk fouled out, Marlon Pompey had 4 fouls and AK had 3 fouls. This while texas had only two players with more than 2 fouls (one with 3 and one with 4).
Kevin Durant played 49 minutes, had 30 points, 16 rebounds, and most importantly only ONE freakin' foul. How is that even possible? I think that is the one thing that just leaps off the page and smacks me in the face more than anything else. We scored 34 points in the paint meaning we had to have taken at least 17 shots inside and then on top of that Durant blocked 3 shots on his own and yet he was whistled only once....and it was on a push that wasn't even in the paint. Again, how is that even possible?
I know that the home team is going to get some calls but what really gets in my craw is that when texas played at Reed Arena we didn't get that advantage....well that and the one foul on Durant. Still the loss was cushioned in my mind knowing that with 3 of our starters fouled out we went to 2OT on the road against the #15 team and lost by only two. Our 3 Big 12 losses are by a total of 6 points.
We host Mizzou on Saturday for Senior Night (3pm on ESPN+). Acie Law and Marlon Pompey deserve every single clap that they get. Those two have been on the bottom. We were 0-16 their freshman year. They have stuck with the program and worked and scraped and worked some more to get to where we are now.
Worth noting, particularly as a Cubs fan, is that HOFer and Cubbie legend Ernie Banks will be in attendance at the game on Saturday. He's Acie's great uncle. How cool is that?
Anyways, tonight at 6:30 the baseball team hosts defending National Champions and the current #9 team in the nation, Oregon State. I'll be in the stands if you need me.
Wednesday February 28th, 2007
10:53amMen Travel to Austin
Tonight. 8pm. ESPN2. The Rematch.
Should be an incredible game. texas has been playing very well since their loss to us. The key to the game will be stopping DJ Augustin. We've struggled against guards who can drive to the hoop.
Aggie baseball won their 12th consecutive ballgame since losing the season opener to Arizona State. We have crept into Baseball America's Top 25 (as well as NCBWA & Collegiate Baseball).
Craig Stinson & Blake Stouffer are both hitting .400 or better and Blake has been en fuego the last few ballgames. He hit for the cycle on Friday night and in our last 6 games he has gone 14-for-25 with 6 runs, 15 RBIs, and 5 XBH.
Our next baseball game will be 6:30pm on Friday night at Olsen Field as we host the defending National Champions, #9 Oregon State. It is part of the Dominoes Pizza Aggie Baseball Classic which will also feature Saint Louis (Sat 6:30) & New Mexico (Sun 6:30). We play OreSt again on Monday afternoon (2:30). Next weekend we host Florida in a 3-game set. I've been looking forward to these two teams coming to town since the schedule came out last fall!
First of all, we've got some t-sips to beat.
BTHO t.u.! WHOOP!
Sunday February 25th, 2007
10:53amAg BBall Continue Ownership of Bears
Ags beat up on Baylor, winning by ten points, 97-87.
Josh Lomers has officially moved into second place on my "Opposing players I hate more than anything" list just behind former longhorn, Brain Boddicker.
That wasn't even one of his 5 fouls. He scored 2 points, had 0 rebounds, 0 assists, 0 steals, 0 blocks. He is complete garbage.
Uber-mega-Baylor star Mamadou Diene finished the evening with the students serenading him with the always fun "Five fouls, no points" chant.
Acie Law scored a season high 31 points but each of our starters put up double-digit scoring afternoons (JJ had 22, Kirk had 17, Carter had 14 on 4-of-4 3P shots, & AK had 11).
There were a couple of other things I thought were noteworthy. At one point during the game the color guy actually used the phrase "There is more than one way to skin a cat" while talking about Baylor. I don't think he even knew. I couldn't stop laughing.
Coach Drew Scott raised the eyebrows of some when Baylor continued to foul with 19 second remaining even though they were down by 12. Billy countered by taking a couple of timeouts with 2.7 seconds left so everyone could get a good look at the scoreboard.
I don't feel too bad for Baylor because their players looked like they were having fun after they fouled out. They were giggling and spending a lot of time focusing on entertaining the student section during the "Left, right, left, right, left, right, left, right, left" chant. It's good to see that they don't take the constant losing too seriously.
Wednesday night we travel to Austin for one more big game before the Big 12 tournament starts off. The horns have played very well since their loss to us a few weeks ago spinning off 5 consecutive wins (ISU, OkSt, @BU, tt, & @OU). They're playing as well as anyone behind DJ Augustin and Durant. It'll be on ESPN2 with an 8pm tip-off.
UPDATE: I couldn't stand to not share this.
Year after year, sport after sport, Baylor fans continue to make me smile. It's like the ESPN commercial where the guy is talking to his friends about sports but everything he is saying is ridiculously wrong until he starts watching ESPN-NEWS.
Here are my three favorite lines:
"A player who physically and mentally dominates.""I have to agree Lomers stepped it up bigtime"
"For one game he stuck it to the aggies where he could and it was FUN to watch."
In two games against A&M this season Lomers had 2 points, 0 rebounds, 0 blocks, 0 steals, 0 assists, & TEN fouls. Each game was a double-digit win for the Ags.
Baylor fans always call us arrogant but I think it has more to do with them not understanding why we're laughing at them. My advice is to start watching ESPN-NEWS.