The Honorable Mention
The 2007 Orange Bowl, the 2004 Liberty Bowl, Rick Pitino accepting the Louisville job, the Billy Gillispie Era of Kentucky Basketball, the 2007 World Series, Louisville winning the 2009 Big East Basketball Tournament, the Eagles' 44-6 Season-Ending win over Dallas in '08, Manual (my HS) beating rival Male my senior year in football
No. 5: (Tie) BU Winning the 2009 Frozen Four
I don't think too much detail needs to go into this one, since most of you who read this blog already know the details.
BU down 3-1 with two minutes left in the third period, Jack Parker pulls the goalie, BU scores with one minute left, then evens it with about 20 ticks left and sends the game to OT. In the extra time, Colby Cohen rips a slap shot that deflects off of a Miami player and falls into the net.
Really the only bad thing about this was that the goal was lucky and that of all people to score it, it was Colby Cohen.
Kept this one short because I know Teddy's going to have a lot to say about it when he does his five best of the decade. Not my job to steal his thunder.
No. 5: (Tie) Darius Washington Chokes at the Foul Line, Louisville Wins
This moment was awesome for so many reasons.
For starters, U of L was playing Memphis, a team that any Cardinal fans still hates, in Memphis in front of a crowd that was probably about 90% Tigers fans.
It was the 2005 Conference USA Championship Game, with this being Louisville's last year in the conference before the upcoming move to the Big East. Memphis needed to win the game to make the NCAA Tournament, Louisville needed it for seeding purposes.
Even though it was a game that pitted the one seed against the six seed, many expected it to be a close game and that's exactly what it was. It was a back and forth battle throughout the game and after a one for two performance from the foul line, Louisville was up 75-73 with less than ten seconds left.
Memphis' freshman phenom Darius Washington took the ball up the court, hesitated (admittedly, a great pump fake) threw up a three that went wide. However, with his hesitation, Washington forced Francisco Garica in the air, who fouled Washington in the act of shooting.
With no time left, Washington was presented with this: make three free throws, your team wins and makes the Big Dance, and you're the hero. Make two, and the game goes into OT. Anything less would be a loss and would eliminate the Tigers from the NCAA Tournament.
I really can't remember a much more pressure-filled situation than this, a freshman standing at the line, all alone, nobody along the lane lines, the focus squarely on him, with his team's fate solely in his hands.
This sounds like a very unenviable situation for an unassuming freshman, but here's a little background: Darius Washington wasn't some sort of martyr or case for pity. The kid certainly had swagger, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but he took it to the point of excessive cockiness. Back in 2005, Memphis wasn't necessarily what they are now or have been for the past few years, but try to think of Washington as one of the guys who set this thing into motion. In fact, he was the star guard for a UM team the following year that was a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament.
He was kind of like an early Derrick Rose, only Rose has a sort of cool demeanor to him that allows his game to speak for itself. Washington wasn't exactly that way, as evidenced by this game where he spent the entire contest pounding his chest and sticking out his tongue after pretty much every basket or any other minute thing.
Even after he was fouled by Garcia, Washington walked over to then-coach John Calipari and said to him "It's over".
It seemed to be that way after he stepped to the line and cooly swished his first free throw. I for one thought the game was over at this point. However, he missed the second try and his final attempt clanged off of the rim and well, that's all she wrote.
Trust me- I'm normally not the kind of person who gets pleasure out of someone else's pain, but between Louisville winning and Washington being served a heaping serving of humble pie, I couldn't contain myself.
It's pretty telling that no Louisville guys even try to go over to help him out, especially since it was a team that featured all-around model guys like Larry O'Bannon, Taquan Dean, David Padgett, and Brandon Jenkins.
Anyone who felt bad for Washinton after this was either: a) a Memphis fan b) didn't actually watch the game or c) a media figure who can't say anything bad about a kid in that situation or else they'd get fired
Then-Louisville center Ellis Myles summed it up perfectly in a postgame interview when asked what he thought about Washington's meltdown: "You know, it's kind of hard to feel sorry for a guy after he spent the whole game pounding his chest and sticking out his tongue."
True story, Ellis.
No. 4: Louisville Football Beats West Virginia in 2006
While risking some extreme hyperbole here, this game presented a surreal scene for me, something that was the culmination of an entire year.
The previous year when these two teams met, Louisville had a commanding 24-7 lead with a little over ten minutes left in the game, only to have the Mountaineers storm back behind the legs of freshmen Steve Slaton and backup QB Pat White to tie the game and force it into OT, a game in which WVU ultimately won 46-44.
The momentum only continued to build as both teams started the 2006-2007 season off ranked in the preseason top ten, with the November 2nd matchup in Louisville being circled on college football calendars nationwide. Going into the game, West Virginia was ranked No. 3 in the country, Louisville No. 5. Even though I'm usually opposed to color outs at arenas and stadiums for games (usually because they aren't that cool or intimidating like the BU-Vermont basketball game in Agganis last January), Louisville promoted a Black Out for the game against WVU, and the Papa John's Cardinal Stadium was completely sold out, with virtually each and every soul inside decked out in black, with the Cardinals going with their all black jersey set.
The game was a shootout and was tied in the third quarter when a few of the stadium lights actually went out, going along with the theme. From that point on, it just seemed like it was a night primed for a Cardinals victory, not like any sort of predestiny (no offense, John Calvin), but it just had that indescribable feeling to it.
Surely enough, Louisville KR Trent Guy returned a punt to the house mere minutes later, Steve Slaton had a few costly fumbles, and Brian Brohm played quite possibly the best game of his career in what amounted to a 44-34 Louisville victory that not only put them in place to win the Big East (which they did), but also the national title (go die, Jeremy Ito).
A lot of Louisville football fans like to point to many signature victories for this program: beating Alabama in the 1991 Fiesta Bowl, upsetting Florida State in 2002 at PJCS, and beating Miami that same 06-07 season. But for me, this was truly the benchmark victory in the history of Cardinal football.
No. 3: Eagles Win 2005 NFC Championship Game, Advance to SB XXXIX
After so many years of futility, the Philadelphia Eagles, under the coaching of Andy Reid and the quarterback play of Donovan McNabb, have been one of the most successful NFL franchises this decade, arguably the most successful one in the NFC.
Despite phenomenal regular seasons and some good postseason play, the Eagles always seemed to fall short and it always happened in the same game: The NFC Championship. In fact, Philly made three consecutive NFC title games in 2002, 2003 and 2004, only to lose in each one of them.
The first of the three losses was when the Eagles were still considered as something of an upstart and they faced off against the Kurt Warner-Marshall Faulk-Torry Holt-Isaac Bruce "Greatest Show on Turf" Rams on the road in St. Louis in a year in which the Rams were widely considered to be the runaway favorite to take home the Lombardi Trophy. Considering the Birds only lost the game 29-24, it was actually like a stepping stone, a sign that this team really was ready for the big time against the best teams the NFL had to offer.
The '03 game brought the Tampa Bay Bucs to the final game at Veterans Stadium, a game in which the Eagles were favored to win, but ultimately coughed up. I can still see Ronde Barber running back a McNabb interception for a TD.
The '04 title game loss to the Carolina Panthers is easily the most inexcusable of the bunch, seeing as the Eagles allowed Jake Delhomme the opportunity to start in a Super Bowl. Nobody should have ever allowed that to happen, but an offensively-inept 14-3 loss will do just that.
In all honesty, I thought the 2005 NFC Championship against the Falcons was going to be the "same story, different chapter" adage. The obvious reason for a potential loss to me was this: you never, ever, ever count out a team with a freak athlete at QB, which the Falcons obviously had in Michael Vick. This theory is exactly why I didn't look past Texas in the '06 Rose Bowl against a USC team everyone prematurely presumed to be the greatest thing ever: because Vince Young has the potential to run wild to the point where no one could stop him. Even though this took place a full year before VY's masterpiece, I imagined Vick doing the very same thing.
But much to my delight, the game did not happen that way. Philly jumped out to an early lead, McNabb was spot on, and it just seemed like Atlanta could never get much going on offense. I'm not saying Vick played poorly, but he certainly couldn't do enough to lead a somewhat one-dimensional to victory. A freezing cold day that made South Philly feel more like Siberia sure didn't help Atlanta's cause out too much either.
It was a glorious moment for Eagles fans everywhere, and even though they went on to lose the Super Bowl, everyone's beyond happy that they at the very least made it. A fourth straight defeat in the NFC title game, the third straight at home, may have meant that the City of Brotherly Love may have been burnt to the ground that day.
No. 2: Red Sox Break The Curse in 2004
This story has been force fed to each and every one of us since it happened and has been a continual reference point for teams searching for a source of hope in a time of desperation, so I'll make this one quick since we pretty much all know the story already.
Yankees lead Red Sox 3 games to none in the 2004 ALCS, Red Sox storm back behind David Ortiz's bat and Curt Schilling's bloody sock to win the series, becoming the first team in professional sports to come back from a 3-0 deficit to win a series.
After the Red Sox completed their historic comeback, the St. Louis Cardinals awaited them in the World Series in what turned out to be probably the most lopsided Fall Classic I've seen in my life, with the Sox sweeping the Cards in four games. After the long, grueling battle against New York, the World Series seemed something like a mosquito trying to stop a charging rhino.
What perhaps stands out the most is that the World Series title ended what many considered to be an unbreakable hex on the organization, the so-called "Curse of the Bambino".
I was very tempted to make this moment number one overall, but the effect that this moment had on the Red Sox fan base has arguably been one for the worse, not to mention the slew of books that came out following the win, which for every good one ("Now I Can Die in Peace" by Bill Simmons), there were numerous unreadable ones ("Idiot" by Johnny Damon, "Faithful" by Stephen King).
Not to mention Ortiz and Manny Ramirez recently testing positive for steriods kind of taints the whole memory.
No. 1: Louisville Comes Back, Makes 2005 Final Four
Louisville Basketball is a storied program with a remarkable history complete with Final Fours, All Americans, and National Championships. However, for much of life, I'd never gotten to experience much of this. My dad would tell me stories of Darryl Griffith and "The Doctors of Dunk" upsetting UCLA in the 1980 title game, as well Pervis Ellison leading the Cardinals to the 1986 title as a freshman, doing what Melo did a little less than twenty years later.
But that's what these were: stories. What I ever saw out on the court was certainly a good program that had good teams, no doubt about it, but it was a far cry from a being a National Championship contender. It was a program that would at times struggle through Conference USA play before ultimately bowing out in the first round of the Big Dance year after year.
Denny Crum was a Hall of Fame coach and was the architect of much of Louisville's success, but it had become clear that the game had just maybe passed him by and the time came to make a change. With this is mind, Crum retired and Louisville AD pulled to coup of all coups- luring recently fired Celtics coach and former Kentucky head coach Rick Pitino to Louisville to lead the Cardinals back to prominence.
And Pitino did just that. After an NIT appearance in his first year, Pitino took a group largely composed of Crum's former players and recruits and made them into a force. Louisville began cracking the top ten and top five in the national polls, but the teams would largely fizzle by the end of the season and exit the NCAA Tournament after a round or two.
But the 2004-2005 season was completely different. Expectations were high going into the season for a team that featured veteran leaders Ellis Myles and Larry O'Bannon, and a pair of junior studs in Francisco Garcia and Taquan Dean, and this team fulfilled those expectations and more.
Behind the spirited play of a very talented team, the Cardinals were a fixture in the top fifteen the entire season, winning the Conference USA regular season title as well as the conference tournament, finishing the year ranked No. 3 in the nation.
After getting shafted with a No. 4 seed on Selection Sunday, Louisville escaped with a narrow victory over Louisiana-Lafayette in the first round was followed by the Cardinals demolishing the defending NCAA Runner Up in Georgia Tech in the Round of 32. No. 1 seed Washington, a team that featured Nate Robinson and Brandon Roy, awaited in the Sweet Sixteen, but Pitino and the Cards pulled an upset with a 93-79 win.
That meant that the only thing standing between Louisville and their first Final Four appearance since 1986 was a No. 7 seed in West Virginia. Many fans, myself included, thought of this as something of an easy game having just dispatched the likes of Georgia Tech and Washington, but it turned out to be anything but.
Behind Patrick Beilein, Johanas Herber, Mike Gansey, and of course Kevin Pittsnoggle, the Mountaineers came out shooting hot from beyond the arc and built a huge early lead. It seemed like almost every shot that a WVU player put up went in, regardless of where on the court they were or how far out it was.
When halftime finally came, West Virginia led by 20 points and a lot of us Louisville fans assumed that would be it for the season.
However, behind spirited, determined play from a veteran-laden team, the Cardinals stormed back. It also didn't hurt that West Virginia didn't continue to shoot 75% from three point range, meaning all the shots that fell for Pittsnoggle and Co. didn't drop after the intermission.
The game ultimately went into overtime, but Louisville controlled the extra period and left New Mexico that day with a 93-85 victory in what I considered to be the greatest college basketball game I'd ever watch.
Sure it only held that title for a few more hours because of what transpired in the Illinois-Arizona game that night, but it still doesn't tarnish what to me was the absolute best sports memory of mine from the decade that was.
