Sweet Tea Logic: CBI Edition!!! or Super Sean Singletary’s Stunning Shot, Subsequent Steal Subdues Silver Shrouded Soujourners, Seals Semi’s

I haven’t raved about Sean Singletary in a long while. And deservedly so. The Cav’s cagers constantly choked in conference competition. But tonight, in UVa’s second round CBI matchup against CAA third-place Old Dominion, #44 showed why his jersey was retired three home games ago. (Quick aside, his jersey is retired according to the sign hanging in the rafters but he’s still very much wearing a jersey that says #44 and Singletary on the back. If his jersey is really retired, they should make him wear the blood jersey until his career ends. Otherwise, take his jersey down from the rafters.)

After a missed free throw by ODU with a less than 20 seconds remaining kept Virginia down only three (see Sweet Tea Logic part two, below), Singletary quickly brought the ball down court. Realizing how awful and unclutch the rest of his team is, S.S. pulled up and with a pair of defenders on him tight (look at the contesting!) threw up a fade-away prayer from behind the arc. If only Gus Johnson could’ve been there to make the call. (And honestly, S.S.’s feat was equally as impressive as Morrison’s). Singletary’s shot banked off the backboard and into the hoop to tie things up with 6 seconds remaining. (Oh Sean, major ONIONS!)

After a timeout, ODU brought the ball up to try for the last shot, except Singletary had different ideas. Singletary stole the ball near midcourt, drove it towards the basket and drew contact while sinking a layup to give UVa the lead. After hitting the free throw, UVa suddenly found themselves up three and survived to play another day. The guy gets a lot of slack for not playing hard enough the full 40 minutes, but he certainly came through tonight when it mattered. Singletary single-handedly extended the Cav’s season for at least another two days.

I’ll show you the clip: Here it is. Keep in mind this was all taking place with less than 30 seconds left in the game.

Thoughts on the CBI: Look, no one’s questioning whether these teams deserved to make it into the real tourney. Hell, I don’t think anyone in Charlottesville is even questioning whether the Cav’s deserved a bid into the NIT. But college basketball is fun and just like the players will keep playing, there are plenty of fans who will keep showing up to the arena as long as there are games remaining. I don’t know if this tourney will make any money or whether it’ll catch on and become a regular fixture, but there were 6,400 fans going nuts at JPJ in the final seconds tonight. The fact the game was pretty much meaningless did not seem to matter to the thousands of students that showed up or the couple hundred rather vocal ODU fans that made the trek to Cville. And why should it? Most college football games are meaningless. Once your team picks up its second loss, any national title hopes are down the drain. Yet the fans still fill the stadiums week-in and week-out. Every basketball team in a mid-major or minor conference (see: The Ivy League) knows it doesn’t stand an ice-cube’s chance in Orlando Hell of hoisting the trophy in whatever football stadium the NCAA decides to hold the national championship game at that year. So, if people still get excited about those games, why not get excited about the CBI? It’s no NCAA tournament, but I had a helluva time watching the last couple minutes of that game tonight and I wouldn’t take it back.

Oh, and ESPN: stop pretending like the CBI doesn’t exist. On the scoreboard, on the top of ESPN.com, the scores of NIT games are listed. No CBI, though. You have to click two different links to get the CBI scores. Look, I know you have a contract with the NCAA and that you televise the NCAA-own NIT (which is the CBI’s direct competitor). But if you want me to take you seriously as a source for sports news, then show me ALL the interesting games, not just the ones YOU want me to know about. tyia

Ryan P. Watch: The Cav’s CBI run has extended Pettinella’s career an extra couple of weeks. Ryan looked awful at times tonight hesitating on an open dunk resulting in him being fouled and only hitting one of the two free throws (still quite the feat for the big guy!) and later air-mailing a layup on a fast break. He did, however, finish the night with 3 points and played decent defense in his 11 minutes of P.T..