Enjoy from my personal collection of NCAA Tournament games. Perhaps I have been a bit too negative on the 2000 NCAA Tournament, as this Gonzaga-St. John's game was a classic, with prime Gus Johnson doing a great job on the call. After being down following Arizona's loss to Wisconsin in the prior set of games, Gonzaga and St. John's provided a compelling game that took my mind off of what happened to the Wildcats. Just like the second round of the 1999 NCAA Tournament, #10 Gonzaga proved itself worthy against a #2 seed, taking care of St. John's as the Bulldogs had done against Stanford the year before. After defeating the Johnnies, Gonzaga was certainly going to the Final Four, at least in my mind, with Purdue, Wisconsin and LSU left in the region. That would not be the case though for the Bulldogs, which forever changed as a program these two tournaments thanks to the play of Matt Santangelo, Richie Frahm, Casey Calvary and many others. To this day, these 1999 and 2000 squads are my favorite Gonzaga teams of all time, a testament to when the program was an upstart as opposed to a West Coast blue blood. 

Enjoy from my personal collection of NCAA Tournament games. I was so sure Fresno State was going to beat Wisconsin during this first-round game of the 2000 NCAA Tournament, though the Badgers would lock down the Bulldogs and begin an improbable run to the Final Four. Led by Tark the Shark, the legendary Jerry Tarkanian, Fresno State had a guard named Courtney Alexander who would be a first-round pick during the 2000 NBA Draft. The Bulldogs also had center Melvin Ely from Chicago-area Thornton Township High School. A future NBA player himself, Ely teamed with future NFL player Antwaan Randle El, Michigan wide receiver Tai Streets, and Oakland Raiders' linebacker Napoleon Harris to have an awesome boys basketball squad at Thornton during the 1996-97 season, my freshman year in high school. In fact, Thornton knocked out Corey Maggette and Fenwick to go down state after Maggette's high school had knocked out my high school, St. Patrick, in the previous round of the Illinois High School Association playoffs. Thornton was eventually defeated by a legendary Peoria Manual squad featuring three future Illini, forward Sergio McClain, center Marcus Griffin and guard Frank Williams. How high school basketball was so good back in the day. In addition to Wisconsin's victory against Fresno State, this video contains the end of a near upset by #15 Northern Arizona against #2 St. John's. I did not realize St. John's was losing this game during the last 10 seconds before Lavar Postell had a three-point play. While suriviving against Dan McClintock and Northern Arizona, St. John's would be upset in the second round by a plucky upstart from Spokane, Washington.