i love northwestern wildcats victories, especially when they come against ncaa tournament qualifiers and especially when they come on last-second shots. t.j. parker will get the limited publicity for the win, being that he's the brother of the nba player and being that he did his a fadeaway 16-footer after going the length of the court in 4.6 seconds (sweet tyus that was beautiful!), but vedran vukusic played so damn well. he's such a complete player, it makes me sick. i don't know if he's quick enough to be an elite '3,' but he's quite a 'tweener.' other than the size-speed problem, i think the only weakness in his game is that he sometimes tries to force the backdoor pass, rather than opting for the 'kick-out-and-reset' method employed four times per possession. 'vu' put up a career-best 26 points tonight, including (i think) 5-for-9 from the arc.

the highlight of the game, other than t.j.'s game-winner and jitim young's 'hand of otto' tie-up to set up the buzzer beater was a vukusic three-pointer. it came at about the six-minute point, when some dude hit a trey to tie the game at 49 apiece, the first time the cats hadn't led since about 8 minutes into the game. on the ensuing possession, the 'cats ran their offense for about 25 seconds, before vu, icewater in the veins, stepped out and answered. at that point, it was apparent that the finish was going to be a good one (to me anyway).

today's game is also significant because it marks the first time in my life that i've done the whole sports bar thing to watch the cats, and come up victorious. my previous quad cities foray, this year's miami (ohio) football game, was an utter disaster. other trips to lovely sports fans pizza in bettendorf include the 2002 big ten tournament first round flameout against michigan, and last season's big ten hoops losses to michigan (blown first-half lead, at welsh-ryan), indiana (big ten opener) and michigan state. i also watched an ugly football loss to ohio with sumo and unstadt while in san francisco this fall.

there's a part of me that wishes coach carmody had scheduled a little lighter this year. facing a traditional northwestern schedule, this team's probably good enough for the NIT. but with colorado (loss), depaul (loss), florida state (loss) and illinois-chicago (huge game saturday) on the non-conference slate, i fear it'll be a post-seasonless career for jitim, which just shouldn't happen. god he's good