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With the Kentucky Wildcats hanging on to what was otherwise a dominant performance over the Kansas Jayhawks in the 2012 NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament Championship Game, so ends the 2011-2012 basketball season. But before we bring another exciting chapter to a close, there's one more matter to address. For fans worldwide of teams not named Kentucky or Kansas, it's the most exciting part of the championship game: CBS Sports' One Shining Moment video.
I can't help it -- I for one, love it every year. This year, I had all the more reason to get excited for it, because for the first time in five years, it was surely to feature No. 10 seed Virginia.
No such luck. In fact, in this year's video, two of the ACC's five teams were shut out altogether -- Virginia and NC State. I know that every year, not every team makes it into the montage, though I have to believe that CBS would make an honest effort at doing so.
Here's the 2012 One Shining Moment video and all of its cheesy, magical glory.
Virginia, of course, only played one game, a game worth forgetting about by all accounts. The Florida Gators looked like a championship team against the injury-plagued Hoos, coming up with a huge 71-45 victory (that would prove not to be the worst blowout of the tournament -- the Gators went on to crush Norfolk State in the next round, 84-50). But I'm of the understanding that the only reason Virginia took such a big loss was so they could get lots of sad-face camera shots, sole purpose of One Shining Moments in mind. No such luck.
The Wolfpack, who survived to the second weekend and nearly made the Elite 8, before losing to Kansas, also got the shaft, and as far as I could tell, also didn't make the video. Even midmajor Cinderella VCU, who made the Final Four last year and the Round of 32 this year, was left off the video altogether, despite all the hype and excitement of whether VCU would be this year's VCU.
So, in my book, this year's One Shining Moment was nothing short of a disappointment, which may be fitting for Virginia basketball given the poor performance at the mercy of Florida.