Something Smarmy about the awesomeness that is Syracuse

Two of my friends from Nottingham came to visit me this week, so tonight I took them to my favorite restaurant on Arthur Ave, Zero Otto Nove. While we were waiting for a table, we had drinks at the bar, where one television screen showed the latest football (soccer) scores and highlights, while the other was showing the ACC tournament highlights.

I had to explain to my friends that yes, we do televise college basketball in the States, about March Madness and about why college basketball is so popular.

They went to sleep tonight after watching Jon Stewart rip into Jim Cramer (in my opinion, Stewart's best performance yet), but I think now that I should have made them stay awake.

See, even though they are avowed non-sports fans, I'm not sure anyone could have watched the Syracuse/UConn Big East Quarterfinal game tonight and not become a fan.

This is, after all, what March Madness is: insane things happening, like buzzer beaters, non-buzzer-beaters and multiple overtiems.

As a Syracuse alumna, of course, it figures I had a vested interest in the outcome of the game. Four years in the frozen tundra of upstate New York has taught me to hate UConn and to hate them well. I thought nothing could surpass the glory of beating them in the 2006 Big East Tournament...

...And then tonight happened.

At times I felt sick to my stomach from nerves, and at others I had to look away because of a an incessant feelings that the teams I like play best when I don't watch, if only then because if I don't see it, I can't see anything wrong with it.

Tonight's game, though, tonight's game re-affirmed everything that we love about sports: the rivalries, the competition, the play-till-you-bleed-your-heart-out, the never-give-up, never-surrender attitude that can take down Goliath. Sure, it's not as though Syracuse was David, even in David's prime, as a #20 nationally ranked team is far different from an unranked mid-major, but the Goliath of UConn has been portrayed as such that you would think anyone not named Pitt or UNC that had won the game would be hailed as a Cinderella.

Syracuse does face the unenviable task of having to again field a team for tomorrow's match up against West Virginia, but somehow, some way, they will.

And once again, I'll be there watching, even through six OTs if need be...