A few words about the George Mason men's basketball team . . .

Peter Boettke and Alex Tabarrok explain the connection between GM's economics department, law school, and basketball team.

I thought both George Mason's coach and Connecticut's coach should be commended for things they said on Sunday. George Mason's coach--after UConn came back and tied the game in the last two seconds and everybody thought George Mason would be devastated and that UConn would surely win, even the coach's wife thought so--told his players:

Fellas, I want to tell you one thing. There's no place I'd rather be right now than here with you guys playing this game. You lapsed on defense for five seconds, so now we have to beat Connecticut for another five minutes. There's no reason we can't do it.

There's no place I'd rather be right now than here with you guys playing this game. Letter-perfect and beautiful.

UConn's coach, after losing, after booting what most people thought was a sure third national championship, which would have elevated him to the Greatest Coaches Ever, said this:

As disappointed as I am, there's a part of me that feels a great deal of inner joy for Jim and his kids and his school. I think because I coached at Northeastern, I have a sense of what this means to all of them. I know Jim has waited a lot of years for something like this to happen. They've been on a magic carpet ride, but don't make any mistake about it: They're a very good basketball team. That's why this is a beautiful game. I applaud them.

Coming from a heartbroken man, that's heartfelt and classy and lovely.

Finally, for the people getting too carried away and calling this the "greatest upset ever" or the "most amazing four games ever" or some other hooha, please understand that it wasn't. Close, but no cigar. The greatest of all those things was the 1983 NC State Wolfpack. If you need a refresher, go here, and let your mind boggle, and feel the chills all over again.

• In seven of the team's last nine victories, they trailed in the last minute.

• The Wolfpack needed to win the ACC tournament to even qualify for the NCAAs. And they barely did that, beating Wake Forest 71-70, North Carolina 91-84 in overtime, and Virginia 81-78.

• In the postseason, N.C. State managed to beat Ralph Sampson-led Virginia, which it had lost to twice during the regular season.

• In one regular-season stretch, the Wolfpack lost six of eight, including back-to-back 18-point losses to unranked teams.

• In the team's opening-round Tournament game against Pepperdine, the Wolfpack rallied from a six-point deficit with 24 seconds left to win in overtime.

• No team had ever won the NCAA championship with 10 losses.

Comments

[Trent McBride]

NC State was a 6-seed. The statement that they had to win the whole ACC tourney to make the NCAAs is dead wrong. You're telling me that the ACC champ. game against highly rated UVa was a make or break game? Win, and you're a 6, lose and you're out altogether? I highly doubt it.

NCSt's run was amazing for all the close games, but it does not beat Villanova's run as an 8 against one of the most dominant teams ever. And GMUs is not to either's level - yet. If they win, and they just might, it will surpass them.

[John Thacker]

In their big losing streak, Derek Whittenberg was injured and missed a bunch of games. Without him, their point guard, they were a lot worse. So that somewhat diminishes the importance of the losing streak.

Regarding the 6-seed-- this was back in the days of the 48 team tournament. Seeds 4 and higher got a bye, and the last at large teams were around an 8 seed, like Maryland that year. NCSU tied with Maryland in the ACC at 8-6 this year, and 7-7 Wake Forest was left out. It is likely that making it to the ACC finals was enough for State, but they were certainly a bubble team before the ACC Tournament.

[Bernie Manning]

Villanova over Georgetown puts NC State's win in the corner. And Princeton's almost upset of Georgetown, even though it failed, has to be right up there.