ARLINGTON, Tex. — With a spot in the NCAA championship game at stake, Kentucky's freshman starters had battled No. 2 Wisconsin from behind nearly all night. But needing two points to force overtime after a furious second-half rally, there was no question which Wildcat would get the ball.
With 5.7 seconds left, Kentucky put the ball in the hands of Aaron Harrison, half of the team's 6-foot-6 twin back court. And once again, he defined the meaning of clutch, sinking a three-pointer — his lone three-point shot of the game — to win it.
— Liz Clarke,
NCAA Final Four: Kentucky defeats Wisconsin, 74-73, on three-pointer by Aaron Harrison with 5.7 seconds to play
, WASHINGTON POST (April 6, 2014).
I couldn't believe it.
The Badgers had lost the game.
And I had lost the bet.
"Don't even think of welshing," my cousin Rob chuckled as he leered at me across the tavern table.
Not that I would. Robert and I had been rivals our whole life, being second cousins attending the same catholic grade and high schools. He'd just edged me out for the Most Outstanding Student Award when we finished eighth grade at Blessed Virgin Academy, but he'd been Salutatorian to my Valedictorian when we graduated from Sacred Heart High School. We ended up going to different colleges, though. I stayed instate, studying Business at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Rob wanted to become an architect, and Madison doesn't have an Architecture program. So he ended up going to the University of Kentucky.
Ironically, after he graduated, Rob got a job with a firm in Milwaukee, where I had just moved to attend law school at Marquette. At heart though, I'll always be a Badger, while Rob had become pure Wildcat. So, when Wisconsin and Kentucky came to face each other in the Final Four, we inevitably got together to watch the game.
The tavern to which he'd invited me was much like so many others that occupy a large percentage of Milwaukee's street corners. Deep and narrow, with a tin ceiling, a massive oak bar with an antique mirror behind it on one side, and a line of tall booths on the other, it had an open area in the back with about a dozen tables and a huge flat screen TV. We'd sat back there to watch the game.