Most memorable loss in a game that featured a statistical milestone or oddity
This is a tough one, as I don't think I've ever characterized losses by the milestones that happen as well.
In 1996 the Red Wings set the record for most wins in an NHL season but then lost in the playoffs to the Avalanche, that's probably the one.
Or in 1997 when Barry Sanders was unstoppable. He set a record and rushed for 100 yards or more in 14 straight games, but then failed to in the one Lions playoff game, which they lost.
--
ONLY FIVE CAN LADDER. Sushi, kamikaze, fujiyama, nippon-ichi...
6) Oklahoma City Thunder vs Miami Heat, 2012 NBA Finals Heat win 4 games to 1 You dont need a recap and highlights of this
The inspiration for this list, and the most recent one to happen. This one should be in the same category as the Rangers-Giants series, except its slightly more aggravating, especially being the team to let the Heat win the title.
I'm not sure if I have a lot to say about this one since its so recent, and you likely saw(read) me yelling at Brooks and such. The only thing I can say is it seems a lot of people are taking the loss well, considering 5000 people showed up to welcome the Thunder back at the airport. And I'm taking it kinda ok, if you ignore my rampant calls for Brook's head.
It still amazes me theres a professional team in Oklahoma, and I'm not sure if it will ever not amaze me
Bonus Question Biggest or most memorable loss against a team considered the "bad guys"
What about when the Panthers were 8-0 at home and Arizona was 0-5 on the East Coast
and again you still lost to Arizona >_>
Arizona was a team on the rise and decided to shock everyone that year (and should have won the Superbowl against Pittsburgh). Not to mention that was when Delhomme decided to show his true colors that night.
-- http://zerosignal620.wordpress.com/ The photograph reflects, every streetlight a reminder; nightswimming deserves a quiet night
So this one is a bit of a cheat, as really I'm combining this with the Big 12 Championship. Before people were talking about 2005-06 USC team as the greatest ever, some were trying to get that ball rolling for this OU team. If we had rolled KSU like we had everyone else, I think the hype would have started
But then Darren Sproles happened, and I punched a door. This was the last time I did something like punch a door or wall out of anger from a sports loss. This would be the first time (of many!) that we would controversy get into the BCS title game, but hey at least we won our division! (>_>)
The LSU game is probably the most frustrating game I've ever watched. I think it came out later that White wasn't 100% but really, we should have won that game even if he wasn't. This would be the start of OU's BCS bowl woes that would last until we faced College Football powerhouse UConn.
Bonus Question Biggest loss where you think you would have won if team or best player was 100%
You may be thinking to yourself, that guy sure has some bad luck, I wonder if these shortcomings appear in his actual life, and not just teams he attaches himself to?
Well lets do a quick recap of 8th grade extracurricular activities, i.e. Im a big nerd
School Spelling Bee - 2nd Place District Spelling Bee - 13 way tie for 3rd (lol) School Geography Bee - 2nd Place 4 of 5 Academic Team Meets- 2nd Place (finished 1st in the last one, woo) District/Regional Math Counts - 2nd Place (Actually finished 1st place before the final round, which is a head to head ladder competition, with 10th facing 9th, and the winner facing 8th and so on. Person who was 7th won 6 in a row to win, I couldn't stop him, lost 3-1 in a best of 5) State Math Counts - 18th Place (finished 2nd among white guys)
Now some might be surprised this game ranks this highly so I'll explain a bit of background. I'm pretty sure my dad would trade several football titles for just 1 basketball title, and that has rubbed a bit off on me. I'm gonna throw up a quick happiest sports moments list before I list #1, and OU beating Arizona as a 13 seed in 1999, which due to a combination of factors is the first postseason win in my life, is going to rank pretty highly. When I attended OU, I never went to a football game but I had season tickets for basketball, and went to as many as I could, and a couple of those will also be on the happy list. Finally, there's a little added oomph because this is the same year the women made the Final Four, so everyone was flying high
I've talked to Jag about this before, but a lot of Okies were a little peeved at Dick Vitale, who was going on his semi-annual rant that they should reseed the Final Four, because clearly Kansas and Maryland were the best two teams. The simple argument we made was there's no way you can say that with 100% honesty, considering we beat Maryland at home, and split with Kansas, losing there but winning in the Big 12 tourney. So its probably fair to say we were looking past Indiana a bit.
Just for fun Im gonna run off some names because I really loved these guys Hollis Price (who I still think is better than TJ Ford and thinks its ridiculous Ford was in the NBA and not Price) Aaron McGhee Ebi Ere Quannas White Daryan Selvy Jabahri Brown (my one memory of Brown is he was by far the best player I've ever seen finishing the alley oop inbounds play
Two things I'd like to point out about the game
1)Up 7 with the clock running out, Indiana nails a 3 to make 34-30 at half. I remember my dad being horribly angry about that, fearing that gave them just the bit of momentum they would need
2)This game was tied at 60 with 3:24 to go. Indiana finished the game on a 13-4 run. Ugh
We would then be subjected to a terrible championship game where Indiana shot 34.5% and Maryland shot 44%, with the teams each having 16 turnovers.
Speaking in hyperbole, I'm not sure we'll ever have another chance as good as this one to win a basketball title, considering what Sampson and Capel did to the program
Bonus Question Your favorite player that never won a title?
Favorite player that never won a title? That's a tough one. Probably would be a lot of Atlanta Braves if not for the ONE we did win in '95! I suppose I'll say Steve McNair and Eddie George, as far as players on teams I root for go.
As far as players on teams I don't root for are concerned, Barry Sanders and Charles Barkley.
And hey, lets do this Leon style and add a question at the end
Whats your most depressing sporting event that you witnessed live?
Probably going to Tropicana Field in 2008 to see my Red Sox play against the newly rebranded Rays. Back when we'd made the plans, Tampa was still the hapless Devil Rays that had taken up personal residence at the bottom of the standings. 2008 was the year they became good. The Rays swept the series, and Florida is and always has been a football state so the home fans really had no idea what proper behavior for a baseball fan is and were absolutely unbearable. At least in the Bronx the fans go about their obnoxious business the right way.
Bonus Question Most depressing or crushing loss in a sport you don't usually care about?
Don't know, but ESPN's Streak for the Cash was probably involved somehow.
...No, wait, that's not true. I think that the idea of high school players and teams being nationally ranked is ridiculous, but when one of the teams, namely the girls' cross-country team, at my alma mater became nationally ranked, suddenly I was excited to follow them. Actually managed to find a webcast of the nationals, which were being held in Oregon--seriously, people from my little New Jersey high school were being flown to a competition three time zones away for their athletic ability! ...Complete non-entity. None of our girls came even close to winning an individual medal, and as a team they were among the worst. I think they'd been ranked #5 in the country entering that competition. Somehow they remained in the top 25 when the following season started; they didn't stay there for long.
So, yeah, definitely watching a webcast of girls from the school I'd graduated from, most of whom I didn't actually know (the seniors that year were freshmen during my senior year), run long distances considerably slower than girls from high schools in other parts of the country is my most depressing loss in a sport I don't care about.
Bonus Question Worst loss in a game or series you were 100% sure you were going to win?
Does it count if you do end up coming back to win the series? Because Game 2 of the 2007 ALCS was absolutely brutal in that I knew exactly how it was about to be f***ed up. Here's Francona going to a reliever, and you know that they'll send up Nixon--our former player--as a pinch-hitter, and he'll ruin our s***. Yes, the pitcher on the mound at the time was the awful Eric Gagne, but taking him out was only going to make things worse.
So I guess I'll have to go with the 2009 NFC Championship Game: Arizona 32, Philadelphia 25. Before the postseason started, that was actually the exact round in which I predicted that my Eagles would finally lose...to Carolina. Then Arizona upset the Panthers, and suddenly it was "Oh my god, we're gonna have an all-Pennsylvania Super Bowl!" And then everything just went wrong. Lost fumbles, missed PATs and Field goals...the Eagles just sucked in the first half, and somehow still managed to take a lead during the fourth quarter. They couldn't hold it. They never hold it.
--
"Everyone has a dick although it may not be physical. You just have to learn to access it within your mind." - blindhobo13
Won regional spelling in my senior year of high school
Finished 4th in the state
I was like a last-minute replacement because my school wasn't going to have a representative at the regional competition and somehow the teacher in charge (who I never had a class with so I have no idea how she knew about me) asked me to step up to the plate and I'm like "yeah sure why not." Didn't study anything for either competition.
I also knew how to spell some of the words because of video games. This is why I play games.
Bonus Question Biggest blowout loss in a game you were super hyped up for?
Any of these people who say that 2004 is their answer to anything are hereby declared liars if they answer with anything other than Game 7. Unless, of course, they were like me and knew as soon as the Red Sox had closed to 3-2 that the Yankees had to close it out in Game 6 because they only had one decent starting pitcher left to trot out and if it reached Game 7 the Red Sox would demolish them.
So I guess for me, it would have to be...I don't know. We don't really do blowout losses, and when we do, they're usually pretty predictable. Probably the 24-0 loss to Dallas to finish the 2009 regular season, followed immediately by a 34-14 loss to the same team in the first round of the playoffs.
Bonus Question Last time you cried over a sports loss?
Never. Sports don't come with their own soundtracks, or if they do, they're not sad enough.
Bonus Question Biggest postseason loss by your team that you still remember that season and team fondly for making it as far as they did?
Game 7 of the 2003 ALCS. Literally never should have happened. The Oakland A's led 2-0. Game 3 went to extras in large part because Miguel Tejada got tagged out in between third and home while arguing with an umpire that he should've been awarded home plate, not third base, on the fielder's interference that had just been called (the second such call of the game, the first of which had awarded a Red Sox player the plate). It was one of two A's Tek tagged out in that inning, which was also the inning in which they got their lone run. So, by all rights, the Sox should've been swept out of that series. But they managed to luck out to get to extras, Trot hit a walk-off homer in the eleventh, and the Sox came back to win in 5 games to set up that series with the Yanks. 2003 sowed the seeds for 2004, and so I will never look back at "what could've been".
Bonus Question Most memorable loss in a game that featured a statistical milestone or oddity
Can't really call this "memorable" because it was a couple of years before I was born, but as I learned last year when the Rangers came a strike away from clinching the World Series twice in as many innings in Game 6 and failed to win it, the only previous team to hold a lead with two outs and two strikes on the batter that would be the final out and fail to win a World Series was...the 1986 Red Sox. Schiraldi gives up three singles to allow the Mets to cut the deficit to one, Stanley comes in and throws a wild pitch to tie the game, then Mookie Wilson hits that damn infield single that gets through Buckner's legs for an error and Knight scores from second. (Yes, it was a single and an error; Wilson was quick, Buckner was slow as s***, and Stanley forgot to cover first base, so even if Buckner had fielded it cleanly Mookie would've reached. It's only an error because Knight would've had to stop at third if he'd fielded it. Everyone forgets that Stanley f***ed that game up just as badly as Buckner did.)
Bonus Question Biggest or most memorable loss against a team considered the "bad guys"
See above. There's even a book about the '86 Mets called "The Bad Guys Won!" They were the bad boys of baseball and they knew it and reveled in it.
--
"Everyone has a dick although it may not be physical. You just have to learn to access it within your mind." - blindhobo13
Bonus Question Biggest loss where you think you would have won if team or best player was 100%
Gonna go to way back before I was born for this one. Back in Game 7 of the 1946 World Series, Boston centerfielder Dom DiMaggio (yes, the younger brother of the Yankees' Hall of Fame centerfielder) got hurt during the game and had to come out early. Late in the game, Harry "The Hat" Walker came to the plate for the Cardinals. DiMaggio recalled trying to tell his replacement, Leon Culberson, what adjustments to make from the dugout. Walker hit a ball deep to centerfield, and Culberson took too long to retrieve it; by the time he'd gotten the relay throw in to shortstop Johnny Pesky, Enos Slaughter, who had been on first when Walker came to the plate, was already on his way home, against Pesky's expectations. Pesky was long the "goat" for "holding the ball", but in reality, it was the absence of Dominic DiMaggio in center field at the end of Game 7 that allowed Slaughter's famed "Mad Dash" to come to fruition.
Bonus Question Your favorite player that never won a title?
...I don't really think about those things. In the era of free agency, it's silly to make attachments to specific players. And my teams have been winning titles recently.
But I'm pretty sure that I've got all of you topped when it comes to personal achievements in high school, because I was on the 15-student team that won the American Regions Mathematics League in 2005. I can therefore truthfully call myself a "national champion", even though it's in mathematics and not athletics. I was sort of on a state champion athletic team, but only by dumb luck; seniors are automatically named to varsity regardless of skill level, and even though I had no real skill, I just happened to be a senior when we won the state title. I fenced in high school. It's a lot of fun.
I've got a few other assorted accomplishments, most of them in the field of math, though I did win my school's spelling bee in 7th grade and got to go to the regionals. But really, nothing's ever going to top the '05 ARML championship. Actually qualifies as one of my better sports memories, too, because I just happened to discover that Boston's UPN 38 was somehow broadcasting all the way to State College, PA, and by the end of the night I'd gathered Sox fans from all up and down the Atlantic Coast to watch the game in the lounge and talk Red Sox--naturally, the game ended with a walk-off home run by none other than Big Papi.
...Oh, my, June is just about over and I still haven't checked in on the results of the 2012 competition. I should do that...
...Lehigh Valley A1. Second Place. Not bad, though it seems like a disappointment after three straight championships. Starting with the win in 2005, they've been top 3 seven times in eight years including four championships. I'm proud to have been a part of this dynasty. A2 actually came in 21st this year, and 6th at the Penn State site...I think we're up to 3 teams at the A level now? A3 wasn't so great, and neither of our two remaining B teams did well enough to move up to Division A. So, not too much to get excited about, but a good year.
--
"Everyone has a dick although it may not be physical. You just have to learn to access it within your mind." - blindhobo13
Biggest or most memorable loss against a team considered the "bad guys"
Probably the Red Wings losing to New Jersey in 1995? The Devils played the "boring" style of trap hockey and it caused a lot of people to hate them over the years as they kept doing well.
Biggest loss where you think you would have won if team or best player was 100%
This one I'm not too sure of. Probably the 2006 NHL playoffs, which was Yzerman's final season. He took a puck to the eye in one of the games and was definitely not 100%, and ended up retiring at the end, party due to that. Although, that wasn't really the only reason the team lost.
Your favorite player that never won a title?
Barry Sanders, easily.
--
ONLY FIVE CAN LADDER. Sushi, kamikaze, fujiyama, nippon-ichi...
Biggest loss where you think you would have won if team or best player was 100%
If Kendall Marshall hadn't got injured, we'd have easily made it to the Final Four this past year. No clue whether or not we'd have beaten Ohio State or Kentucky though.
From: Dr_Football | #126
Your favorite player that never won a title?
NBA: Charles Barkley (also my overall pick) NFL: Steve McNair and Barry Sanders Baseball: Ichiro Suzuki
-- http://zerosignal620.wordpress.com/ Dallas Cowboys: 8-8 --- Next Game: Next Year =(
From: Mershaaay | #137 Kind of unfair to call them the "bad guys," but they were basically al qaeda playing against our 9/11 responders sorry dude but the yankees are never the good guys
Biggest loss where you think you would have won if team or best player was 100%
If Kendall Marshall hadn't got injured, we'd have easily made it to the Final Four this past year. No clue whether or not we'd have beaten Ohio State or Kentucky though.
From: Dr_Football | #126
Your favorite player that never won a title?
NBA: Charles Barkley (also my overall pick) NFL: Steve McNair and Barry Sanders Baseball: Ichiro Suzuki
We are LITERALLY one of the best teams in History this year. Trust me on this, you don't beat us.
We are LITERALLY one of the best teams in History this year. Trust me on this, you don't beat us.
lol literally didn't even win the conference
If by didn't win, you mean went 16-0, then sure.
Most wins of any team ever. First team to NEVER trail in the second half of the NCAA Tournament? Beat EVERY team they played all year, had the #1 and #2 draft picks. I could go on, but it is not worth it.
and kentucky lost to indiana who lost to indiana state, who were literally below .500 in the missouri valley conference
XFD
literally took advantage of an extremely week college basketball landscape sculpted by one-and-doners
would have lost to early 90s UNLV or duke teams by 30
Would have ABSOLUTELY blown the ****ing DOORS off of Duke. That 92 team if not for the refs keeping in Laettner, literally loses to a team THAT DOES NOT MAKE OUR TOP FORTY OF ALL TIME. Do you have any idea how much the 2012 Cats would plaster the 92 Cats by? It would pretty much be Jamal Mashburn vs Davis, Gilly, Jones, Lamb, Teague, and Miller.
You are right about 1990's UNLV though, but that makes sense, they are one of the top 3 teams in history, and only lost when they literally threw the game for gamblers.
Also, last year was the strongest CBB had been in at least a decade, if not more (UK, UNC, Cuse, Kansas, OSU, Mizzou, Duke, Mich St. all fielded great teams because so many players returned from the previous draft because of the lockout). The year before was ABYSMAL, and this year might be worst, but last year was really really strong.
would have lost to early 90s UNLV or duke teams by 30
After reading "Duke Sucks", I can confirm that the refs would have kept Duke within 4 points of Kentucky the whole game. Early 90s UNLV would god-stomp almost every college team in existence, so you're right on that.
-- http://zerosignal620.wordpress.com/ The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing - Edmund Burke