BYU scores big assist
The BYU Cougars already have the biggest assist in the NCAA tournament and they’ve yet to play their first game.
Jesse Wade was stuck in an elevator for 40 minutes at the team’s Indianapolis hotel before his teammates forced open the doors and freed the junior guard.
The whole affair played out Thursday night on Twitter, including a video showing several teammates prying open the elevator doors and an ecstatic Wade popping out into the hallway to cheers.
“Scariest moment of my life but I knew the boys had my back,” Wade tweeted.
He also tweeted, “I’M OUT 40 minutes feels like a lifetime when you’re trapped inside an elevator. All I can say is that if you think I had it bad in there ... you should see the elevator door after the boys got me out...”
Bruins’ long, strange trip
It didn’t take Mick Cronin and UCLA long to realize that playing in the NCAA tournament as the pandemic stretches into its second year is going to be a little strange.
Consider some of the things that happened to the Bruins in their 8680 overtime victory against Michigan State Thursday night in a First Four game in West Lafayette, Indiana.
There was the 90-minute bus ride in miserable weather from Indianapolis to Mackey Arena in three buses, an interesting bench setup involving center Dave Singleton and a 3 a.m. celebration to cap off the night.
“Look, there’s reminders at all times, right?” Cronin said Friday in a video call. “When you go to put a guy in the game, and the game is at Purdue, they went a little in excess on the social distancing with the benches. I’m trying to put Dave Singleton in the game and he’s in the fifth row. That’s a reminder.” The bus trip was another.
“I mean, how many times do you play a game an hour and a half from your hotel?” Cronin added. “I don’t know how far Purdue is, but when you’re on a bus you get there slower with high winds and rain. The bus driver might have been the MVP getting us to the game. I was starting to worry the way the bus was swaying on a two-lane road.”