JUST RIDICULOUS !!

Try as we might to bring the St. Patrick's Day countdown your way, the absolute magic of college hoops and BrothersMcC mojo refuses to be ignored.


John Noonan's (that's him administering the bear hug) favorite descriptive adjective is "ridiculous." It is summoned for good, ill and anything in between.

And now it must be applied to Ursinus College basketball.

These guys are ridiculous.

Tonight Ursinus took on last year's national runner-up Virginia Wesleyan (of the powerful — and I mean POWERFUL — Old Dominion Athletic Conference — which has produced its share of great teams, D-III Hall-of-Famers and slow, earthbound, fundamentally sound, Irish-American hotheads who get in fights and nearly tossed from games minutes after tip-off when their families have driven five hours to watch them play ... okay maybe just one of those.)

This second-round match-up had "Bad News" written all over it for Ursinus. Their leading scorer and All-American Nick Shattuck was hobbled by a painful bruised heel and Virginia Wesleyan was fast, physical and experienced.

By the way — this Shattuck fellah was cut from his high school freshman team and squeaked on JV as a sophomore. Now he's a college All-American. Mover over, Rudy. Here's a picture of the dude:








Long story short — Virginia Wesleyan comes out smokin' and Ursinus is down 17 at half time. Shattuck has as many points as I do to complement his three fouls and John Noonan is clanging everything outside two feet.

But soph guard Matt Hilton is on fire — or as his notorious relative might say, "hot."
And 6-10 Michael Shema is beating up Virginia Wesleyan inside.

In the second half — Ursinus chips away, Virginia Wesleyan gets tight, Nick Shattuck absolutely guts it out and scores huge bucket after huge bucket, Noonan finds the range and some French dude named Cousart has a zillion assists. Ursinus comes all the way back and finally takes the lead 60-59 as John Noonan, showing hops foreign to the rest of his gene pool, converts a sweet alley oop play.

It see saws the next couple of minutes. Helfferich Hall is pandemonium, my sister — John Noonan's mother — is in cardiac arrest, her husband — John's dad — is quietly aging decades and my nephew Sean is apparently plotting a media grab (see above photo — and dig the Ohio State sweatshirt — purchased by the wife and yours truly. Kid has taste.)

Ursinus rides clutch play and a collective huge pair to a mind-boggling 70-64 comeback win for the ages. And a spot in the Sweet Sixteen. And quite possibly the greatest post-game celebration picture in sports photo-journalism history.

Reached for comment following the game, John Noonan characterized the comeback, the photo, the gutcheck, the Sweet Sixteen, the celebratory embrace with teammate Keith Page, the Freak-a-Deak photo jubilation of his cousin Sean and the length of this sentence as ...

"ridiculous."