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Make no mistake. This was not, under even the most perverse of standards a thing of beauty. It was like the North Sea. Massive, unpredictable, possibly life threatening, but immensly rewarding at the end knowing that you survived it and have a hell of a story to tell anyone who might listen and/or give a damn.
The simple narative is thus. The Bearcats played 32 minutes of spirited, high effort, uber aggressive Basketball....and had a 12 point deficit and 25 per cent shooting to show. Justin Jackson fouled out early in the 2nd half. Kelvin Gaines was inefectual and Mick Cronin made the equal parts ludicrous/brilliant decision to install Jermaine Sanders at CENTER for the last 8 minutes of the game. And it worked. Looking at the box score I can't fathom a way that a team that shoots 27 per cent from the field (hot shooting raised it from 25) and gets out rebounded by 8 and comes back from that kind of deficit playing NO POSTS against a team with a massive height and size advantage. Cashmere Wright was terrible shooting the ball but made the two biggest shots of the game, both of them from unlikely angles. I could go on and on with stats that state, definitively, that the Bearcats should never have been in this game in the first place, let alone win it. But whatever, I don't care. A wins a win and this one is memorable as hell and will be a massive circle on the Bearcats resume the rest of the year. That's all for now. This Alamobowl between Baylor and Washington is going gorilla's. More on this tomorrow for now good bye.