Best game I ever saw

For years, the best college basketball game I ever saw in person was a Gophers-Iowa tilt at the Barn in January 1989. We had a cartoon keg before the Saturday noon tipoff (root beer, of course), painted our faces, and sang the Rouser until we were hoarse. The Gophers took an 82-80 lead on a tip-in by Jim Shikenjanski (remember him?) with one second left. After a timeout, Iowa fired the ball the length of the court, and Roy Marble buried a 3-pointer ... after the buzzer. Gophers win, euphoria sets in, and a hangover probably set in the next morning.

That was the best college basketball game I ever saw in person ... until tonight.

My buddy Tim and I have been trying to get to a UNLV game all season, and we finally made it over to the Thomas and Mack tonight for the first round of the Mountain West Conference tourney. The second-seeded Rebels were playing seventh-seeded TCU, a team they'd beaten twice by double figures in the regular season.

But the Horned Frogs were up to the challenge tonight. They came out firing, knocking down 3-pointer after 3-pointer in the first half and responding to every Rebel bucket with one of their own. UNLV pulled ahead late in the first half and took a 40-38 lead into the locker room. Tim and I kept saying, "They can't keep shooting like this all night. The Rebels will pull away in the second half."

And when they opened the second half on a 9-2 run to take a 49-40 lead, we figured we were right. But once again, TCU wasn't paying attention to the script. Guards Brent Hackett and Ryan Wall caught fire again, and a 15-2 run put the Horned Frogs back on top by five midway through the second half.

The Rebels responded with their trademark gritty defense -- hard to believe, but almost all of those 3s were buried with a hand in the shooter's face or with the shot clock expiring as the ball sailed to the hoop, that's how hot the Froggies were -- and the teams traded buckets until the final minute, when the Rebels held an 86-85 lead.

The Frogs worked the ball around and found Hackett, who of course drained his sixth 3-pointer of the game to put TCU on top by one with 30 seconds left. After a couple of timeouts, the Rebels inbounded the ball under the basket with 7 seconds left. Wink Adams took the ball outside the 3-point line, lowered his shoulder and willed himself to the basket. He hit a runner while getting fouled, and his free throw gave the Rebels an 89-88 lead with 3.2 seconds left.

But Hackett wasn't done. He took the inbounds pass and raced down the court, eventually pulling up for a running one-hander from the top of the key at the buzzer and ... it hit the front rim and bounced away harmlessly. Rebels win, and probably punch their ticket to the NCAA Tournament along the way.

One look at the stats will tell you why this was such a remarkable game. The Horned Frogs hit 17 of their 23 3-point attempts -- that's not a misprint; they actually hit 74 percent of their 3s -- and they were 17-for-19 from the line. The Rebels were no slouches themselves, going 11-for-25 from behind the arc and shooting .585 from the floor. Adams' 29 points led the way, while Hackett finished with 26 for TCU. There were 15 lead changes and 10 ties. And the over/under for the game was 125, which they passed with about 11 minutes to play in the game.

Here's a great recap from the AP's Arnie Stapleton, who had a tough task because unless the policy has changed since the days when I wrote for them, he had to file a story within five minutes of the end of the game. There was so much action to summarize and so many key stats to include in the story, I'm amazed he was able to get them all in.

The Rebels play Utah in the semis on Friday night, and the winner will face Brigham Young (unless San Diego State can pull off a major upset). BYU is going to the NCAAs no matter what, and with New Mexico losing to the Utes in an overtime thriller tonight, the Rebels are probably safe as well.

But given the action that took place at the T&M tonight, it'll be hard to pass up a return trip to the Shark Tank on Friday.