Madness! Buzzer-beaters and wild moments from conference championship week

Kentucky made a huge comeback to turn Florida’s huge lead into a one-possession game down the stretch of the SEC Tournament final. In fact, they could have won it on their last play if James Young didn’t cross paths with a slick patch of floor:

It’s like someone dropped a Mario Kart banana peel on the hardwood. Too bad, Florida wins.

N.C. State was fighting for its NCAA Tournament life and was listed in Chris Dobbertean’s next four out before the game. Duke is working to improve its seeding in the Big Dance, and could also be playing for a No. 1 seed on Sunday.

When Virginia and Duke met in January at Cameron Indoor Stadium, the Blue Devils walked out with a 69-65 win. That game was settled by a late three from Rasheed Sulaimon that gave Duke a 67-65 lead with 19 seconds remaining.

Louisville entered the AAC Tournament final playing extremely well and that continued on Saturday, as the Cardinals pulled away from Connecticut and secured the AAC Tournament championship with a 71-61 win. Louisville didn’t threaten 100 points like it did during the first two games of the tournament, but it was in control throughout the contest.

A Chris Jones jumper gave Louisville a 8-6 lead just over four minutes into the first half and the Cardinals held the lead the rest of the game. The Huskies were able to remain within striking distance for most of the half, but struggled to make a run to cut into the lead. Instead, Louisville slowly increased its lead, building an eight-point advantage with two minutes to play in the first half. It added some more separation with a strong close and went into the break up 14, 37-23.

From there, it was a back-and-forth battle with both teams matching the other step for step. A 5-0 run gave the Bruins a bit of breathing room, but the Wildcats came right back with an 8-4 run of their own.

The stars on both teams came to play. Kyle Anderson once again did a little bit of everything for UCLA, finishing with 21 points, 15 rebounds and 5 assists. Adams and Powell also had solid games for the Bruins, finishing with 19 and 15 points, respectively, in addition to the two big plays at the end.

The Tulsa bench has a long way to go to match the dance skills of D-III Colby College, but it did some top-notch dancin’ Saturday to celebrate its opportunity to go...well, dancin’. The team needed some big late free throws to beat Louisiana Tech, and when it got them, the bench cut a rug or two:

Yeah, even the dude in the suit.

Did you know that Aaron Craft is a Winner? That he just Knows How To Win? It’s nice to Know How To Win, but its also nice to know how to throw a ball towards a basketball hoop with your arms.

A common belief of internet denizens is that I hate Aaron Craft. I don’t! I think Aaron Craft is an average-to-above-average player, perhaps even the best guard on Ohio State, which is a very good basketball team! (I think Shannon Scott is better, but that’s just me.)

Kemba Walker and Shabazz Napier are different human beings -- we swear -- but if you watch their clutch step-back jumpers from different UConn conference tournament appearances, you might not know it (via @Rich MacLeod)

Of course, Kemba’s was to win a game against Pittsburgh to win a game in the Big East tournament -- one of about 42 game-winners he had that week -- while Bazz’s was only to extend a lead against Cincinnati late in the AAC tournament, but, still: uncanny.

The America East final was between the fourth-seeded Albany Great Danes and the second-seeded Stony Brook Seawolves, two large dog-like creatures, one of which is real. And when dogs get together, they like to play and/or fight.

Which might explain why during the midst of the conference championship game, Damien the Great Dane and Wolfie the Seawolf got into a legit mascot fight while play was live:

Hey! There was a fun game between Arkansas State and Arkansas-Little Rock in the Sun Belt quarterfinals on Friday night.

No need to even pull up the box score or video highlights, though, because this guy painted a full and complete picture of the game in the length of one Vine.

Down three with the ball and 20 seconds left, Syracuse had a chance to send the game to overtime or get a quick bucket and turn it into a free throw contest. The Orange missed. Then they missed again and again and again and again and again. Six misses on the last possession! “Yakety Sax” might seem overused as a way of soundtracking every #fail, but it’s truly fitting here.

Check out the play-by-play, via ESPN:

Iowa State upset Joel Embiid in the Big 12 Tournament quarterfinals on Friday, but it didn’t come without some blood, sweat and tears. Well, mostly blood.

Shades of MJ over Byron Russell in the 1998 NBA Finals.

H/T @Rodger_Sherman

This is how you find an open shooter in a corner. Really, DePaul never had a chance to defend it.

(Original source. H/T FTW)

Our own Rodger Sherman got another look at Gathers’ game-winner from press row:

Georgia Tech’s Daniel Miller failed at his key objective.

I’m not fully sure what Creighton’s Devin Brooks was trying to do with this pass. He chucks it at about 1,000 miles an hour, and although it looks like he’s aiming for the open man under the basket, it doesn’t come anywhere close to him.

Instead, it banks off the very side of the backboard, and magic happens:

On Feb. 16, Rutgers played Louisville and lost. It lost by a lot. It lost 102-54, meaning the other team had 89 percent more points than it did, which is bad.

It was matched up against the Cardinals in the first round of The American tournament Thursday, and surely it studied the game-tape and was ready to NOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Via @GIFdsports

It turned out Thursday was Maryland’s farewell to ACC basketball. And Florida State’s Boris Bojanovsky made sure the farewell was an extremely rude, violent one.

Florida State couldn’t really afford a loss to the Terps as they try to stay near the bubble, but the game was a tightly contested one, with a pair of Dez Wells free throws tying it up with 12 seconds to go. On the ensuing possession, some pretty ball movement ended up with Charo White dumping the ball to a wide-open Bojanovsky, who proceeded to away the Terrapins’ season.