JOURNEY TO THE WAC TOURNEY

(Still yet to make the continental breakfast.)

Thursday

Men's first round

Noon game: No. 4 Boise State (12-4, 22-8) vs. No. 5 Hawaii (7-9, 11-18)

LAS CRUCES, N.M. -- Before we get to the corrections from yesterday, the blog just saw a series of basketball plays it has never seen before, at least not in the order it happened. Boise State was called for goaltending, on a close play where both a Bronco and a Hawaii player had their hand up there. The ball was still hanging on the front of the rim, though. It was a good call. Then, on the inbounds play, the ref threw the ball to Hawaii guard Riley Luettgerodt*, and he simply started walking down the floor with it. Didn't throw it in, just walked it in. He must have forgotten where he was. Or a mid-term he hasn't studied for. Maybe a needy girlfriend he didn't call last night. Something. I'm telling you, it's the water down here. Or the Roswell aliens and their mind control. Someone call Vegas and see if the aliens have money on Boise State. Anyway, the Broncos got the ball back, and then couldn't get the ball in bounds and got a 5-second call. Hawaii ball again. Minutes passed and the ball didn't leave an area the size of Ghandi's shoe closet. Weirdest exchange of the week.

*Random fact: Riley Luettgerodt says he wears #22 because his brother wore #11 and he wants to be twice as good. As far as the blog knows, there is no correlation between jersey number and basketball ability, but this probably merits further study.

Time to fix a couple errors from yesterday. I'm blaming exhaustion, even though I wasn't exhausted. How tired can you get watching basketball? First of all, the San Jose State women have three wins. I wrote yesterday that they had two wins coming into the game against Fresno State, but I forgot about Tuesday's play-in game against Idaho. So strike the smart-aleck comment about San Jose State being the best two-win, women's basketball team in America. Are they now the best three-win team in America? you ask. I'm not prepared to make such a statement at this time. There are many, many, many quality options when it comes to three-win, Division I women's college basketball teams in this great nation of ours. OK, there's five: Centenary, Winston-Salem, Norfolk State, Brown and San Jose State. Am I going to say the Spartans are better than Norfolk State? Than the Bears? Who can make such decisions? I'm not mentally ready right now.

While I still haven't technically found any other errors, I've gone back and added the link to today's column in the Bee, and edited-in the final scores at the top of each game summary so you don't have to read through all my nonsense to figure out who won.

Hawaii was leading this game against Boise State for the entire first half, but Boise State took a lead in the second and is up with a minute left. Gibson just hit two free throws ... 1:02 left in the game ... 71-67, Boise leads. I can't keep up with this. I'll just tell you how it turns out.

FYI: Hawaii's pep band is directed by a 70-pound elderly woman wearing a green fuzzy hat and playing a tambourine. She has not, as they say, run out of eligibility. How many times can I say it? You will not find information this useless in books. Don't even try.

Ballgame over. Boise State advances, 80-74. Great scene from the end of that game which absolutely tops the weird series of events from earlier in the game. Not even close. Compared to this, I can't believe I even told you about that. Here's what happened. With less an 1 minute to play, Hawaii's Bill Amos fouled out. It was a long game for Bill. He had some trouble catching the ball in the second half. He was frustrated. So as he was leaving the floor, the Boise State students (and the Utah State students who were already in their seats for the next game) started doing the left!-right!-left!-right! chant. You know, the ones that ends with the fouled-out player getting a loud SIT DOWN! as he takes his seat on the bench. I've always thought this has to be the most aggrevating heckle in basketball because the game is stopped, it's usually quiet, and there's nothing you can do to stop it.

I've also thought the only way to counteract this heckle would be to simply sprint to the bench and sit down before it catches any momentum. Only problem is, they make you stay on the court until your replacement comes in and the coach is usually taking his time on the substitution while he has the opportunity to point out every bad call the officials have made their entire careers. Hawaii's Bill Amos was determined to not be victim to the chant. While he was standing on the edge of the court, waiting to sit down, he started messing with the crowd. He lifted his left leg and put it straight back down. "LEFT!" the crowd yelled. Then he lifted his right. "RIGHT!" Then he jumped with both feet. The crowd had no defense for that. The Utah State students started applauding him. But Amos wasn't done. He then bluffed at sitting, causing a half-chant, then walked down the end of the bench and stood by the Gatorade bucket.

If it ended there, it would still be the greatest defense of the Left-Right chant in history. But it didn't end, as you may have gathered. About that time, Amos' teammate Jared Dillinger fouled out. So then the opposing crowd started Left-Righting him toward the bench. And then Amos saw what was happening and he started walking back toward his seat. Half the crowd tried to jump back into his chant and the whole thing imploded. You could see heads exploding. No one could even chant anything as Amos sat down. If I had to vote right now, he's tournament MVP.