My article on the collapse of the Arizona basketball dynasty was very timely. That very night, Arizona went on to lose in one of the most embarrassing ways I have ever seen.
Do you know what the wildest part about this video is? Horne is the first one to go to Fogg and try to drill into his head what he did wrong. When the stroke of luck occurs and UAB misses the front end of the one-and-one, I actually thought the horrible foul was going to work out for them. Boy, was I wrong.
After Horne intentionally fouled the UAB Blazer and essentially lost the game for Arizona, I found myself puzzled, amused, yet at the same time a little sad. How can this happen in Pac-10 college basketball? These kids are attending a college that, by all stats and measures, is a decent public school. How can they not put 2 and 2 together, and know that the game is tied? Forgivable once, yes. But TWICE? No.
Poor coaching, poor basketball smarts, poor everything. Arizona has two directions which it can go at this point: Straight into the toilet, or right to the top. If this moment can somehow bring the team together, and they can grow despite the adversity they face from the disgusted fanbase and the ever-growing odds, they could put on an improbable, Disney-style run into March Madness.
But really? No. This was the nail that sealed shut the coffin that holds the remnants of basketball glory in Tucson.
As for the Sun Devils, they weren't that great looking on Tuesday, either. But we pulled out a road win against a decent team, and now we are better equipped to deal with Pepperdine on Sunday.