Jamie Mottram's Sports Blog - www.misterirrelevant.com

Inspired by the new book Being There, I've asked sports bloggers/fans for their favorite in-person sporting moments. The contributions range from heartfelt and triumphant to absurd and mundane, and they're sure to put a smile on your face. Previous posts focused on the NFL, WWF and NBA, while today's looks at NCAA basketball. Other sports are coming up, so stay tuned and send your own Out of the Basement, Onto the Game moment to dcsportsguy@aol.com. It's almost sure to get posted.

Zach Landres-Schnur, The Big Picture and FanHouse

Gotta be when the then up-and-coming Washington hoops team knocked off the top-ranked, undefeated Stanford Cardinal in the last game of the regular season. The win, perhaps UW's biggest to date, led to a swarmed court and the Huskies making the Dance for the first time in years.
 
There was a group -- about 40-50 people, including myself -- that camped out for the game. It was thought to be the first time it had ever happened on the U-Dub campus. Coach Lorenzo Romar was kind enough to bring the loyal band of fans pizza that night and donuts in the morning. The players came and hung out, and Nate Robinson, the star of the team, is surprisingly good at Madden.
 
The game was not only filled with excitement because of the upset, but it jumpstarted a highly successful run that led to back-to-back Sweet 16 appearances. Watching replays of the game gives me shivers. Still.

Brian Powell, Awful Announcing

George Mason- UConn, March 26th, 2006. Everyone watched the game on television, but to experience it live was something completely different.  The entire crowd in unison lived and died with not only every shot, but every dribble.  There were times that I don't think I breathed for minutes on end.  When Denham Brown hit the reverse layup to send it to overtime it felt like I had been shot.  Everyone thought it was over including myself as I turned to my friend and said, "There is no god." 

Well, there is a god because Mason shot 5-6 in overtime and survived a buzzer beater from Brown that would have won it for the Huskies.  As I left the Phone Booth I looked around and commented that I'd never seen a happier group of people.  We knew we had witnessed history, and that's a great feeling.

Dan Steinberg, DC Sports Bog

1) Serious one. Uconn-George Mason at Verizon Center last March. Sitting next to Mike Wise, wondering whether we were about to get crushed by fans who might storm the court (they didn't). Wondering why it was that Jai Lewis and Will Thomas kept taking it to Rudy Gay and Hilton Armstrong and Josh Boone. Wondering why every pep band in the country doesn't play Livin' on a Prayer during the NCAA tourney. Wondering, briefly,whether Mason might win the national championship.
 
2) Not serious one. Watching the New Zealand curling team and the German curling team eat weird cheese, drink weird beer, and face off in table-top curling hours after they completed pool play at the Turin Winter Olympics. Then the Kiwis went to a local banquet hall to do the Haka and listen to an Italian cover band play Dire Straits. That will never be topped, I don't think.

Ted Bauer, A Price Above Bip Roberts

"It all has to come back to Georgetown, because I went there, and thus the passion is intensified. I was in the house when we won our first Big East Title in my fandom, this March over Pittsburgh at the Garden, but I wouldn't rank that No. 1; that would come in No. 2, I think.
 
Number one would actually be a game we lost - the four overtime barn burner with Notre Dame back in February 2002 at The Phone Booth. I was covering Georgetown hoops for the school paper, so I was on press row; rules specifically forbid cheering there, but by the second overtime, no one cared. Guys from The Washington Post were whooping it up with Indiana radio hosts, alternately jabbing and high-fiving based on the plays. The building was more electric than it had been for at least three plays, seeming to grow in numbers and strength of reaction as the players on the court tired. Chris Thomas of Notre Dame was playing like Clyde Drexler; Kevin Braswell looked like Isiah (you know, before he became a joke). Ryan Humphrey and Mike Sweetney were reminding people of Ewing and Hakeem down there; Matt Carroll's stroke was purer than Reggie's on that day.
 
Even though it was a loss (116-111, ultimately), I'd pick this game because it contained every element of sport that I was raised to believe makes it great: undeniable drama, ridiculous individual performances, and a sense by everyone in the building that we were part of something way bigger than we should have been on this random winter Saturday afternoon. Sports, on that day, became like a religion, a grand unifying force that required belief, but rewarded brilliantly. I had never felt it so tangibly before then, and I'd define everything afterwards by those few hours inside the MCI Center.

As a freshman at the University of Maryland in 2002, I was lucky enough to score tickets to the home game against Duke on Feb. 17, 2002. Maryland went on to win the National Championship that year. The final was 87-73, but the game wasn't nearly that close, in fact, I'm pretty sure there with about 10 minutes left in the game when Duke was still under 40 points. There's three reasons why this is the best game I've ever been to: Read the full story.

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