"AN INSTANT CLASSIC ON THE CORNER OF JOHN STOCKTON AND KARL MALONE DRIVE!" And The Rest of Gus Johnson's Fun Night In Salt Lake City

Oh, Gus, we really did miss you and your awesome screaming in the NCAA Tournament! What a night he had. For all the bad luck he has had in the past few years, he can now say that in what has been a wild and incredible tournament, he called the Game of the Tournament. But before we go there, let's get to this little thing called Butler upsetting Syracuse in a close game, shall we?



"BUTLER! AGAIN!"

Priceless Gus Johnson. It is worthy to note that before that Gus did have his moments of complete freakout in that game, although aside from the highlight videos that everything out, I can't seem to find anything.

And that maybe because the game he called after that one trumped it by a wide margin. Here are your late 2nd half and overtime game and Gus Johnson highlights of what was undoubtedly the game of the tournament, quite possibly the game of the college basketball season thus far, and maybe even an overall game of the year candidate. I present to you this highlight video starring Kansas State, Xavier, Karl Hess, and Gus Johnson.



"Let's it go AND BURIES IT!" - GuJo on a K-State 3 to put them up 3 with 23.6 to go.
"Here comes Holloway with the screen, OH HE'S FOULED ON THE SHOT!" - GuJo on the shooting foul behind the arc.
"WE'RE HEADING TO OVERTIME!" - GuJo. Self explanatory.
"Holloway, turns, fires OH HE MADE IT AGAIN! - GuJo on a Holloway 3 that tied the game with 46 seconds left.
"Holloway, he's shown a flare for the dramatic. Holloway! 11 to go! Holloway! Holloway gets it out. Crawford! 8! Crawford's gotta HURRY! UP..OOOHHHH!!!!!!!! HE'S TIED IT! CLEMENTE! CLEMENTE FIRES....AND WE'RE HEADING TO DOUBLE OVERTIME!! WHAT A GAME! INSTANT CLASSIC ON THE CORNER OF JOHN STOCKTON AND KARL MALONE DRIVE!" - Gus Johnson calling the final seconds of the first overtime.(Len Elmore's screaming drowns out the "OH!" but if you listen closely you can still make it out.)
"Redford a 3. Off the glass and no good and that's it! Kansas State advances to the Elite 8 with a double overtime win over Xavier! 101-96!" - Gus at the end of the game.

Now for some talk about the game. Yes, Karl Hess did mess up that call at the end of regulation. Yes there was a foul before the shot before the foul in the act of shooting behind the arc was called. Yes, Karl Hess was given a get out of jail free call by Kansas State holding off Xavier and winning one of the most thrilling and exciting NCAA Tournament games we've seen in quite some time.

Now back to Gus. If you think that we are the only ones that talk about Gus Johnson, think again.

Check this out:

As the seconds were winding down in double overtime, Gus Johnson was the #1 Worldwide Trending Topic on Twitter. How cool is that.

And yes, I was at first disappointed that Gus got the West region. I figured that out of his three possible destinations (Houston is the excluded destination for the obvious reasons; Nantz's hometown and Duke), SLC was the least attractive of the bunch. Boy was I wrong. We are yet to see what takes place in St. Louis but last night Salt Lake City saw a close and exciting upset, even if at times it was not the most beautiful basketball game ever played, and that was followed by the Kansas State-Xavier thriller that was without a doubt the game of a tournament filled with great games. On the other hand, the games in Syracuse set basketball back a few decades.

One Of The Most Controversial Endings To A College Basketball Game You Will Ever See

I don't know how many of you got a chance to the Xavier-Butler game that was on this morning, but if you did, then you witnessed one of the most controversial endings that you may ever see in your life. Butler had an inbounds pass with 36.9 seconds left. Eventually they lose the ball into the backcourt but it is touched by an Xavier player negating a backcourt violation. Not realizing this right away, the clock operator stops the clock for a brief split second before restarting it again. That minor detail would prove very critical in the outcome of the game as Butler made a game-winning basket with 1.2 seconds left. They reviewed the play. The result of that review created a situation that looked eerily similar to that ill-fated November night in 1997 in Montreal when Vince McMahon screwed Bret Hart.



Wow. While they certainly have every right to be upset about how that went down, I can't help but to feel like there should have been at least .2 left on that clock for them to attempt some sort of miracle play or something. Butler got the win, but as you saw in that video, Xavier was not happy.

By the way, that was a review that lasted 10 minutes. If you want to see the whole thing, click here to watch it in an albeit poorer quality video.