2008 Woodie Awards
Instant classic ends in crushing loss
Pat Pickens
Issue date: 2/1/07 Section: Sports
Maybe it was my fault.
Sitting on press row on Saturday at the 16:46 mark of the second half as Joey Henley made a lay up to notch the Pioneer lead to 19, the highest it had been all day, I leaned in to my editor, Fitz, and whispered the unspeakable words.
"It's over."
It was easy for me and every other one of the 2,259 in attendance to think. Henley and the Pioneers had strutted into Detrick Gymnasium in New Britain, a place they hadn't won in nine years, and looked utterly dominant.
They sent the local fans and students into a collective coma, they answered every punch that the normally confident Blue Devils had thrown at them, and it finally appeared that, the new kid on the block had arrived and was finally ready to announce to the world that they were here to stay.
But then the catastrophe struck.
It wasn't a progressive fall either. As the Devils crept closer, with a 7-1 run that cut the lead to 13, the fans started to sense it. As their spurt became 18-10, that made it a seven-point game, they tried to will the Devils closer.
Even after the two super freshman, Chauncey Hardy and Ryan Litke, who seemed too naive to realize the inevitability of the collapse, kept pushing with all their might to maintain a 10 point lead.
But the three-headed CCSU monster that was Tristan Blackwood, Obie Nwadike, and Javier Mojica was too powerful for some measly freshmen.
That same "monster" which the Pioneers had held to just 17 first half points, combined to score the next 28 CCSU points. And as long and ardent of a process as it seemed to make the game a laugher, was as quickly as the Blue Devils turned it into a nail biter.
Let it sink in.
55-34, 16:46 in regulation.
63-61, 9:53 in regulation.
A 27-8 Central run over not even seven minutes, whipped the crowd from comatose to bedlam. Every second half possession the Pioneers seemed tested. It was as though everyone was guessing what rabbit SHU would pull from its hat to keep the Devils at bay.
Sitting on press row on Saturday at the 16:46 mark of the second half as Joey Henley made a lay up to notch the Pioneer lead to 19, the highest it had been all day, I leaned in to my editor, Fitz, and whispered the unspeakable words.
"It's over."
It was easy for me and every other one of the 2,259 in attendance to think. Henley and the Pioneers had strutted into Detrick Gymnasium in New Britain, a place they hadn't won in nine years, and looked utterly dominant.
They sent the local fans and students into a collective coma, they answered every punch that the normally confident Blue Devils had thrown at them, and it finally appeared that, the new kid on the block had arrived and was finally ready to announce to the world that they were here to stay.
But then the catastrophe struck.
It wasn't a progressive fall either. As the Devils crept closer, with a 7-1 run that cut the lead to 13, the fans started to sense it. As their spurt became 18-10, that made it a seven-point game, they tried to will the Devils closer.
Even after the two super freshman, Chauncey Hardy and Ryan Litke, who seemed too naive to realize the inevitability of the collapse, kept pushing with all their might to maintain a 10 point lead.
But the three-headed CCSU monster that was Tristan Blackwood, Obie Nwadike, and Javier Mojica was too powerful for some measly freshmen.
That same "monster" which the Pioneers had held to just 17 first half points, combined to score the next 28 CCSU points. And as long and ardent of a process as it seemed to make the game a laugher, was as quickly as the Blue Devils turned it into a nail biter.
Let it sink in.
55-34, 16:46 in regulation.
63-61, 9:53 in regulation.
A 27-8 Central run over not even seven minutes, whipped the crowd from comatose to bedlam. Every second half possession the Pioneers seemed tested. It was as though everyone was guessing what rabbit SHU would pull from its hat to keep the Devils at bay.
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