Courtesy of The Dagger, one of the coolest in-game scenarios I’ve ever seen. Two players alley-oop a ball together. Just watch.

Courtesy of several tweets, links, and hat tips, The ODC has (finally) found video of Jordan Crawford dunking on LeBron James.

This is the video that was allegedly confiscated by Nike after it was caught on tape at the LeBron James Skills Academy. Crawford, a 6’4″ guard at Xavier, drops a two-hander on the King. Here is Crawford discussing the dunk at a point when it would apparently never be seen.

BUT…here is the video, in good quality, of the mystical mythical dunk itself. Witness.

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Oh, and I’m also on Twitter, though I’m inclined to follow that sentence with ‘sadly.’ You can follow me here.

Yeah, and you thought Trev would let the Tar Heels’ National Championship victory roll by with just one article? Your ass must be crazy. As usual, it’s a good read.

Check it out.

Last night was the reason my heart belongs on Tobacco Road.

Last night was the type of mastery that demanded I paint my bedroom walls Tar Heel Blue as a child.

Last night was why I have read “A Coach’s Life” and “The Carolina Way” over and over as though they contained within them the secret to life’s journey.

Last night was why I brought my Joe Forte jersey to work at a management consulting firm yesterday.

Last night was why I still carry my copy of “500 Reasons I Hate Duke” with me on road trips.

Last night is why I would name my first born child Dean Smith if he asked me, and why I would think for half a moment about one day forgiving Vince Carter (but only for half a moment…after all, let’s be reasonable here).

Oh, to be on Franklin Street. To drink in the fine wine of victory, of Banner Number Five. To shout down the fools in Durham and to sing the praises of Tyler, Ty and the Latest Great Team in the lineage of excellence.

Somewhere, even Matt Doherty is smiling.

To the Heels themselves, thank you. Your mission is accomplished. your potential realized. You put a Vader-like choke hold on the college basketball world three weeks ago and refused to give any team slack.

This was the performance I have been waiting for for the last three months. This was the level of execution that had pundit’s labeling you The Last Great College Team in the preseason. This was Carolina basketball.

This was awesome.

I dream in Carolina Blue, and last night I dreamed well.

I haven’t written anything for The On Deck Circle in a long time. After this weekend’s Pitt-Villanova game I had to once again fire up MS Word and let the Internet, and more specifically Scottie Reynolds, know how I feel.

Before you read my letter to Scottie, know that I am a Pitt basketball fan. I went to high school in Pittsburgh and started following them when they were a Big East also-ran playing in the pressure cooker known as Fitzgerald Fieldhouse. The turning point for the program was the 2001 Big East tournament, when Brandin Knight, Ricardo Greer, and Issac Hawkins led the Panthers on a surprising run to the championship game (where they were pumped by Troy Bell’s Boston College Eagles).

I remember that run because we were vacationing in Mexico at the time, and whenever Pitt was on my Dad and I would desperately scour Playa del Carmen for a bar showing ESPN’s coverage of the tourney. Whenever you’re turning down sunny beaches for very unspectacular sports bars to watch a team in the bottom third of the Big East, you might just be a Pitt fan.

That run in the Big East tournament set the stage for the program’s success in this decade. This year was supposed to be the culmination of that success. Pitt had two excellent senior leaders at key positions and one of the nation’s best big men. They were built for tournament success and battle tested in the Big East all year. They achieved their first ever number one ranking during the season.

This was the year for Pitt, and then Scottie Reynolds and Villanova happened. Let’s just say that I wish American could have finished them off.

Dear Scottie,

Hi there buddy. I’ve been a fan of yours for a while. I remember when you were a wee freshman at Villanova, teaming with Mike Nardi to form an unexpectedly formidable backcourt. As a frosh you lead Nova to a surprisingly solid season the year after Foye, Ray, and Lowry left for the riches of the NBA.

That year I actually changed my name on MSN Messenger to “stuart – who is scottie reynolds?” to pay homage to you (Editor’s Note: It stayed there for 6 months before being replaced with “stuart – carl krauser is a raptor, it’s a no brainer”). I think it was after you scored 40 points on UConn – I was quite impressed with your cold blooded three point shooting as a freshman in the Big East. I mean, anyone who could get Mike Nardi to defer to them had to be a player, right?

Obviously we’ve had a good relationship these past three years. I’ve followed you as you’ve helped elevate Villanova back to its status in the Foye-Ray-Lowry days. The Wildcats are now That Team, flying into the NCAA Tournament under the radar despite going 13-5 in the Big East and unbeaten against Marquette, Pitt, and Syracuse.

Until Saturday night, I couldn’t have been prouder. You and Dom James were my non-Pitt guys. Dom managed to end his career with my respect for him intact (something much more valuable than having his foot intact, if you ask me). You, on the other hand, decided to throw our three year relationship out the window in approximately 5.5 seconds. What you did in those 5.5 seconds, as ridiculous as it seems, has ruined my sunny disposition for the rest of March Madness.

As long as this college basketball season is still in progress I’m going to be an inconsolable sourpuss. And it’s all because of you. You still have my respect, but you have lost my undying admiration. That has now been partitioned and sent off to Stephen Gray, Earl Clark, and Edgar Sosa. I hope you’re happy.

As all basketball fans realize, the past decade of NCAA basketball has given us an overabundance of incredible finishes, groundbreaking plays, and historically great teams. We as fans have been spoiled by the exceedingly talented players that have descended on the college hoops landscape, and we have but one man to thank: Kevin Garnett.It was Garnett who, back in 1995, chose to bypass the college experiment altogether in favor of bumrushing the Association.

The move forced David Stern’s hand and changed the college game forever. Stern worried that Garnett would serve as a blueprint every prep star would try and emulate. These high-schoolers would not be physically or emotionally mature enough to handle life in the NBA, which would hurt his company’s market offering and their bottom-line.

Instead of an awe-inspiring young talent entering the NBA primed and ready for greatness, Stern saw that he would have been forced to promote a league whose talent level was watered-down and whose youngsters did not understand fundamental aspects of the game. He simply would not stand for this reduced level of play and the impact it might have.

What followed of course was am infamous and lengthy legal showdown, as the league sought to impose an age requirement on the Draft that restricted players under 20 from consideration. The Players Union and a group of prep stars fought the motion’s validity tirelessly on the grounds of antitrust and competition laws, but ultimately they were ignored.

The two season requirement in college ushered in a new period for the Association, now full of known-commodity veterans and more fundamentally sound play. It also created the Golden Era of College Basketball.

There can be little doubt that the first impact of the age limit was felt in Durham, North Carolina. It was there that a precocious, charming young man/human scoring machine named Kobe Bryant touched down and forever left his mark on the college scene.

Bryant employed a scorched earth technique across the country, as his two years in Cameron Indoor Stadium brought Coach K two national championships, an undefeated season, two ACC titles, and a 6-0 record against North Carolina. Having set the ACC single season scoring mark, Bryant took his two National Player of the Year awards and dual national scoring titles to the Los Angeles Clippers as the first pick in the 1998 NBA Draft.
Bryant’s departure created room at the top of the college landscape, and no player or program seized that opportunity more than Tracy McGrady and his Kentucky Wildcats. As a high-schooler, McGrady committed to Kentucky after breaking onto the national stage at the adidas ABCD All-American camp. McGrady’s freshman season in Lexington saw the Wildcats reach the Final Four before bowing out to North Carolina and their star sophomore Jermaine O’Neal.

The next season though, McGrady, Jamal Magloire and Rick Pitino put it all together. The Wildcats won 30 games en route to raising another championship banner into the rafter of Rupp Arena.

After two relatively uninspired years that saw Michigan State triumphant followed by Duke capturing an unprecedented fifth title in eight years, the 2002 season brought a return to form in terms of fan exhilaration and bold, youthful athleticism.

Kwame Brown, a star recruit of coach Billy Donovan, helped propel the Florida Gators to the national crown. The Fab Five 2000, as the Gators recruiting year of Brown, David Lee, James White, Adrian Moss and Max Booker came to be known, ignited the college game with their sweltering pace and searing team defense that lead to more fast break dunks than any team since Houston’s fabled Phi Slamma Jamma squad.

It was here that Brown polished his low post game and gracefully eased into his role as leader. Not shouldering impossible expectations like those suffered by lottery picks, Brown matured and grew into a highly effective defender and scorer during his three years in Gainesville before starting his solid NBA career as a polished talent.

Brown and the rest of the Fab Five redux nearly achieved back-to-back national championships, in fact. Their quest reached the Final Four, where their usually immaculate interior defense was shredded for forty minutes straight by Amar’e Stoudemire, a phenom who possessed raw power not seen in a college player since Larry Johnson and whose athleticism seemed limitless.

Stoudemire had paired with Chris Massie and Rodney Carney to give John Calipari’s Tigers to most physically impressive frontcourt the NCAA had seen in years. Yet even they proved to be no match for Carmelo Anthony’s Syracuse Orangemen, who had defeated a Dwyane Wade-led upstart Marquette squad earlier in the tournament. Anthony’s one man assault on the lane got Stoudemire into early foul trouble, and from there the product of Oak Hill Academy showed his sweet shooting touch in a blowout for the title.

That epic season served only as a prelude, or rather, a coronation ceremony, to the man that would be King.

LeBron James had been the most celebrated amateur in his sport since his fourteenth birthday, and there was no question that he had all the physical abilities to be a “once-in-a-generation” exception to David Stern’s age limit. James and his handlers knew this and from the time he was a high school Junior onwards, they fought the league in court, claiming that the age restrictions unfairly impacted his ability to earn a living given the NBA’s monopoly status as a pro league in America.

When James’ numerous appeals proved fruitless, he decided it best to vent his frustration on the court at Ohio State.

James towered above everything and everyone in the college game. From the first moment he donned the Scarlet and Grey, James began his NCAA conquest: his two seasons as a Buckeye saw him win back-to-back unanimous Player of the Year awards by averaging a gaudy 27.2 points, 10.2 assists, and 12 rebounds a contest.

Having recruited fellow All-Americans Ivan Harris and Kendrick Perkins to join him in Columbus, James led the school to repeat Final Foul appearances. So dominant was James that many were surprised he was unable to carry his team, inexperienced and short on talent though it was, to the championship as a freshman. While James produced one of basketball’s greatest single game stat line in the National Semifinal (40, 12, 15), his supporting cast was too limited to overcome Ben Gordan, Emeka Okafor and the Huskies from Connecticut.

James would not be denied again. Ohio State defeated Shaun Livingston and Duke easily to enter the Final. It was there in the 2005 National Final that LeBron finally squared off with the only player with a level of athleticism as commanding and potent as his own. The results were gripping.

Georgia Tech’s freshman superstar Dwight Howard possessed a level of brute power so overwhelming that he had broken two backboards that year. Howard’s Yellow Jackets reached the tournament’s summit by upsetting North Carolina, who was led by a group of juniors (but had standout freshmen of their own in JR Smith and Marvin Williams).

To the delight of hoop fans everywhere (yes, even Billy Packer), James and Howard turned the game into their own personal match of “Can You Top This,” creating highlight after highlight, from fall-away threes to earth-rattling dunks, from no-look-behind-the-back passes to rejections into the seventh row.

After thirty-nine perfect minutes of action, the game was on the line and the ball lay in James’ hands. James took Anthony Morrow off the dribble to his right before losing him at the foul line and exploding to the rim to be met in mid-flight by Howard. Chest-to-chest, the two prodigies crashed together for what felt like an eternity before James thundered down a career-defining jam.

It was in that moment that what was to be struck violently together with what already was.

There was only one word to describe that moment: Madness.

Thank heaven David Stern stepped in when he did and gave us that One Shining Moment. Can you really imagine if it had been any other way?

Update: Because everyone is having trouble with Yahoo, I’ve moved the pool to CBS Sports as well. Head to:

http://theodc12.mayhem.cbssports.com/brackets

join the group The On Deck Circle (aka theodc12) and the password is blake

Enjoy!
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Today is Selection Sunday. That means Thursday starts the best time of year…March Madness. Try to block out the nicer weather, the impending baseball season, and the wild NBA playoff races, and make some picks for…you guessed it, bragging rights.

Click here to join the pool. It’s on Yahoo, the group ID is 79402 and you don’t need anything to sign up.

And a big thank you to Joe, who runs SportsBlogNet (our host), who has offered up $20 without entry fee to the winner of the ODC Pool, so long as you’re a member of Sportsblognet.com by the time the tourney starts, you can win a 20-piece. Boom Tho.

What is the best part of March Madness?

Some would say the potential for upsets. Some would say filling out brackets. Some would say the game of basketball itself.

But really, the reason we’re all so drawn to March Madness is the drama. You probably know this. What’s unclear sometimes is how exactly we experience said drama. Our bias towards teams or players, our surroundings, or our personal comparison points can alter the level of enjoyment we take from a game. Personally, I feel the two most important non-game factors are your viewing situation (with friends, big TV, good snacks, etc), and the announcing crew.

Alex, Stu, Josh…you see where this is going already. Thanks to Awful Announcing, I’ve gotten a sneak peek at the announcing teams for the first weekend of March Madness. I’ve opted to forego a tourney-wide preview. Sad, I know. Instead, I’ll give you an in-depth preview of the portion of the bracket with the highest potential for drama, based on announcing alone, the Minneapolis Region, henceforth known as The Gus Johnson Region.

Yes, Gus Johnson will team with Len Elmore to announce the Minneapolis Region, which is part of the Midwest Region of the main bracket. The games Gus Johnson will be making 40% more enjoyable are as follows:

Friday, 12:30 PM – (3) Kansas v. (14) North Dakota St.
A lot of people appear to be on the ND-State train early, both because they’re the first team to ever enter the tournament from the state of North Dakota (surprising for such a known basketball haven…), and because Kansas isn’t viewed as an especially strong 3-seed. Sorry to burst your bubble, but there will be no upset here. We can, however, root for a close game (a Spread Buster Special) to let Gus warm those pipes up for this next game…

Friday, 3:00 PM – (6) West Virginia v. (11) Dayton
Boom, upset number one in your Gus Johnson Madness Side-Pool (I have this as an upset, I took the over on 6.5 “Oh My Gods Per Game,” and I chose ‘no’ for Gus calls out Matt Devlin for trying to steal “Rise and Fireeeee!” because who the hell is Matt Devlin to Gus Jeezy). West Virginia is perennially a tough call in Round One, because they’re never very good or very bad. Unfortunately for the Mountaineers, they’ll be the ones getting Pittsnoggled by Wale’s Dayton Flyer than the Rest of Thems.

Friday, 7:20 PM – (7) Boston College v. (10) USC
Not that you can really call a 10-7 an upset, but here it is. USC is one of the hottest teams entering the tournament, coming out of nowhere (a disappointing 9-9 conference record) to win the Pac-10 Tournament. Demar DeRozan turned on the jets, averaging 19.6 points over the team’s 5-game season-ending winning streak, well up from his 13.6 for the entire year. Might as well point out right now that USC also has four players committed for next year that ESPN has rated as 90 or better. Watch the Trojans go deeper than expected in the tournament, led by DeRozan’s ascension back into the upper part of the lottery.

Friday, 9:50 PM – (2) Michigan St. v. (15) Robert Morris
Michigan State is a weak #2 seed in my eyes, but there’s very little upset potential here. Good thing, too, because Gus will be pretty worn out after those last two games.

Sunday, 2:30 PM – (3) Kansas or (14) North Dakota St. vs. (6) West Virginia or (11) Dayton
Tough to foresee what could be going on in this one, but I think Kansas is powerful enough to get through either WVU or Dayton Quit Hatin’. I hear Len Elmore likes to party, so Gus might be a bit hungover for this game anyways.

Sunday, 5:00 PM – (2) Michigan St. or (15) Robert Morris vs. (7) Boston College v. (10) USC
Here’s the call: “Gibson with the defensive board, 6.4 seconds to go, ahead to Hackett…he drives, DeRozan cutting…the pass, the lay-uuuuuUUUUUpppp…IT’S GOOOOD! USC IS HEADING TO THE SWEET SIXTEEN!!!”

Yes, fans of these teams and this region have won the de facto “Gus Johnson Lottery” as AA coined it. Personally, I think the upset potential in this part of the tournament makes us all winners, while the overall lower level of talent limits what could be a very good Uncle Gus Weekend.

As if, with March Madness beginning tonight (technically, I guess…), the VoD could be anything but the obligatory annual hype machine that is a Gus Johnson mash-up!

T-Smith at work over at Hoops Addict again. I’ll avoid comment. The internet hates Trev. It’s best I just stay away.

In all seriousness, it’s a good read, as always. Check it out!