A touch of madness

Sports offer plenty of ways to stage thrilling conclusions to events; that's a big part of the charm.

But what's better than a basketball game when the ball goes up on the air while the horn sounds, with the fate of both teams hanging in the balance?

Very little. Unless it was Thursday night/Friday morning's game between Syracuse and Connecticut. That's because the ball was up in the air six different times in such a circumstance, and still nothing was decided. (As I've always said, you give Jim Boeheim seven chances at winning a game, and he'll think of something by then.)

Luckily I could see the game at work, as the contest sailed through deadline after deadline until after 1 a.m. Luckily, it ended shortly before the final edition so a few of our readers could see the story of the game Friday morning.

(And that's better than what happened to the Chicago Tribune. It reported a 97-95 UConn win in triple overtime. Ouch.)

Plenty of words have been written about the game, which surely ranks with the classics of the sport's history. I'll merely add that it almost seems unfair that UConn gets to go home and rest up for the NCAA tournament under these circumstances, while Syracuse must play again 20 hours later.

But that's basketball, and that's March Madness.