I've been to over 100 Creighton games in the 10 years I've lived here in Omaha, and I've never been present for a game-winning shot at the buzzer. Until Saturday night. For that matter, I've never been in an arena, or a stadium, or a ballpark and seen my team win on a last-second play. Until Saturday night.
Saturday night, Creighton fell behind 25-6 in the first 12 minutes of the game. A furious comeback put them in position for Anthony Tolliver to hit a 15-foot jumper as time expired to win 57-55. The entire 12-second sequence unfolded right in front of us...
As Johnny Mathies brought the ball up the court, my old college roommate John (who was in town for the game) was incredulous that the Jays weren't calling timeout. When I watched the TiVo of the game the next day, the TV announcers shared that opinion. I knew better -- Dana Altman prefers his teams to go for the winning shot without calling timeout. Sure, you can set up a play, but the defense can too, and he's always trusted his teams to create a shot without having to draw something up. Sometimes it backfires, like in the 2004 NIT game against Nebraska. Sometimes like Saturday night, it works beautifully.
With 15,600 standing and screaming, Mathies analyzed the defense from the top of the key, and drove it inside. 5 seconds left. Goes up in the air, draws the defense in on him. 3 seconds left. Notices Anthony Tolliver's defender has left him to collapse on his shot, dishes off to a wide open Tolliver on the wing. 2 seconds left. The arena goes silent momentarily. Tolliver jumps, releases a beautiful 15 foot jumper. Point-4 seconds remaining. Nothing but nylon! Game over! Jays win 57-55!
The entire arena exploded. I couldn't believe it, what a finish!
I wish the crowd was like that every game -- I despise sitting down for an entire game. I understand that outside of the student section, you have to behave yourself more -- being obnoxious is appalling when little kids are around. That said, whenever possible I prefer to stand up, yell, and make life a living hell for the visiting team for two hours. Lets just say I was hoarse and had nothing left in my vocal chords after this game. I lost about two octaves from my voice, and I didn't much care.
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Afterward, with my buddy John back on his way to Des Moines, I headed out to the bars with some friends. The first celebratory beer was hoisted at Old Chicago downtown with a coworker and his girlfriend, who had been to the game as well and called me on my cell to join them for a drink. (Hilarious message by the way, because he had his girlfriend call me -- and the message she left had no name on it. Don't get me wrong, I'm as big a fan of partying girls inviting me to join them via voice mails on my phone as the next guy, but it helps to have some idea who they are. Luckily a follow-up message 10 minutes later cleared up any confusion, and I met them downtown.)
Then we moved on to the Upstream, where many more celebratory beers were hoisted. It was here that I ran into an old friend, whose appearance and subsequent attempts to shanghai my evening gave me an excuse to rehash a slew of hilarious stories about going out of town to see Doug Swenson literally beat up Northern Iowa 8 years ago (I think he threw a punch, but I've never quite been sure). For such a sad tale, that story sure never fails to get laughs. Maybe its just that I'm a gifted storyteller. Maybe its just that its only sad to me, and hilarious to everyone else. I dunno.
At 11:30, we moved on to a danceclub in Council Bluffs, which was predictably interesting. All I am going to say in my defense is beer goggles are a hell of a thing, that's all...at bar time, which thankfully is 2 o'clock in Iowa, we moved on to House Party #1...had some beers there, and at 3 am the entire group moved on to House Party #2, and, well if you weren't there, you will never know. Never.
Ah, another stellar Saturday in the books. Always good when the Jays win.
You bet.
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