The Sports Watercooler

There is something so special about Senior Night to end the college basketball year. The crowd is more into the games, the players are either a) wanting to go out on a high note if you are a senior or b) wanting to show how much you appreciated your senior teammates.

And its always on senior nights where I truely feel anything can happen.

Take Senior Night my freshman year, the JACC was packed as we were going to make the NCAA tournament (something that was a relatively new feeling then), and we were playing Providence. The seniors being honored that night included future (and short lived) NBA-er Ryan Humphry and fan favorite Harold Swanagan. The game was in front of a national audience on CBS. Notre Dame came out flat, and at some point in the second half, the crowd realized that we just couldn't let Hump and Swanny's last game in the JACC be a loss. The entire JACC stood for the last 6 or 7 minutes of gametime, as the Irish slowly climbed back. I remember just how cool it really felt. This wasn't one of those "I felt like I was a part of something bigger moments" because, reality check, it was a basketball game against Providence, but it did feel as if the crowd willed this team to a victory. Notre Dame finished the game on a 19-4 run, winning the game. For the 7 minutes that the entire crowd was standing and cheering, the Friars never made a field goal.

And ever since then, I felt like, given the right emotions, Senior Night can be a beautiful thing.

And it was for St. Joe's last night. The last night in the historically old Fieldhouse, before it undergoes renovations, they had famous alumni in the crowd (well, famous is a lose term. But Jameer Nelson and the Bracketman Joe Lunardi were in attendance), and St. Joe's managed to upset 11 Xavier.

And Providence had a bit of Senior Night magic of their own. The managed to beat 17 UCONN for the second time this season, and managed to shut UCONN douche bag AJ Price up in the process (in case you missed it, Price told the media previously that he didn't respect the way Providence acted when they won the first time and he planned on blowing them out of the gym. Whoops).

UCLA beat Stanford in overtime to claim the PAC 10 regular season title. Maybe Brook Lopez was too preoccupied with trying to figure out how Carrie will EVER find a man.

2 more conference titles are up in the air on Saturday, and will be decided by two stellar games.

Louisville will travel to the land of monuments and senators to play Georgetown. And North Carolina will be traveling to the land of strippers and rapists to play Duke.

And in a final note, thoughts and prayers out to the North Carolina campus. As rough as that rivalry may seem, the fact that Duke has announced they will hold a moment of silence for murdered UNC student president Eve Carson, is a real class act.