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NEW YORK (The Tuesday College Diaries) - Caught your breath yet?

Chances are the Syracuse players haven't. March Madness got fully under way with a frantic week of conference tournaments that did little to disappoint.

So hold on, we've a lot to get through...

There was no question which was the game of the week. That came on Thursday night in New York as Syracuse emerged from a six-overtime epic with a 127-117 win over UConn. The numbers were amazing. At six OTs, it was second only to Cincinnati's 75-73 win over Bradley which needed seven back in 1981. One hundred and two of the 244 points were scored after regulation. Six players registered double-doubles, while eight more fouled out.

It almost didn't happen - overtime that is. With the game tied at 71, Eric Devendorf shot a 28-foot three pointer and nailed it, but replays showed he let go as the buzzer sounded, and it was scrubbed off. No one could have guessed what was coming next.

Jonny Flynn should be counted among the game's heroes. His figures of 34 points and 11 assists for Syracuse stand out, but not as much as his effort in playing all but three minutes of this 70-minute epic.

"I just wanted to get the game over with," he said. "I was thinking, 'Lord, just get this game over with, Whoever wins this game, let's just get it over with. I can't even feel my legs right now."

UConn could have saved everyone the bother by shooting their free throws, but made only 24 of 42 during the entire game.

"We lost the game because we turned the ball over 27 times and couldn't make a foul shot," coach Jim Calhoun said.

As it turned out, Syracuse were not even done, as they were playing overtime again a day later to beat West Virginia 74-69, but the pace caught up with them as they lost the title game 76-66 to Louisville, who secured a No. 1 tournament seed with the win to give the Big East three of four along with UConn and Pitt. The Big East also tied the ACC and Big Ten with seven teams in the field.

Yep - there's no doubt which conference owned Championship Week.

By the way - all those bids for the Big Three's teams came at the expense of the mid-majors, who got only four at-large bids as the committee seems to make the Tournament more of an insider's club every year. Let's just hope they eventually remember you have to invite Cinderella if you want her to dance.

Over in the ACC - the Big East's only real challenger for supremacy - Duke showed off its post-season prowess by emerging from a crowded field with its pieces of the Georgia Dome nets.

Still, whether they would have managed it but for an injury to North Carolina's Ty Lawson remains open to debate. Lawson sat out the tournament with a finger injury, and watched helplessly as Florida State upset his Tar Heels 73-70 in the semi-finals.

If we assume Lawson was worth plenty more than a three-point swing - and we do - North Carolina would have advanced to play a Duke team it has already beaten twice this season in the final, and one that looked a little less than convincing in sneaking past Boston College by a point, 66-65.

Still, the committee took pity on North Carolina, naming the Tar Heels their only non-Big East No. 1 seed. Duke, which topped the Seminoles 79-69 to take the title, settled for a No. 2.

SEC Sinking

While the Big East, ACC, and Big Ten celebrate, spare a thought for the Southeastern Conference, which has only three teams in the field - and might not have managed that had not NIT-caliber Mississippi State upset Tennessee in the title game to clinch the automatic berth. The SEC has not had less than five teams in the field since 1996.

Maybe Auburn coach Jeff Lebo was right when he joked earlier this season that the committee would soon rescind that automatic berth.

It certainly seems that respect for the SEC has fallen about as far as it can when the Volunteers, who boast an RPI of 23 and the second-toughest schedule in the nation only get a nine seed despite 22 wins.

However, the committee found little to like about a conference where traditional powerhouse Kentucky has fallen on its knees. The Wildcats' streak of NCAA Tournament appearances has ended at 17 years, and there are already murmurings that coach Billy Gillespie - whose brusque manners have hardly ingratiated him with the Bluegrass State - could pay with his job. Their performance at the NIT might determine whether that comes to pass.

Dionte Christmas continued to make this a season of goodwill (sorry) for Temple as he scored 20 points to lead the Owls to a 55-53 victory over Xavier in the Atlantic 10 Conference tournament semi-final. then followed it up with 29 points a day later in the 69-64 final victory over Duquesne.

Purdue, it seems, was just teasing us. The Big Ten pre-season favorite fell to a No. 3 seed in the tournament after losing three of the final four games of the season, but the Boilermakers came through when it mattered, with E'Twaun Moore scoring 14 of his 17 points in the second half to beat Ohio State 65-61. It's the first Big Ten championship in school history.

Bear markets: You could be forgiven for thinking Baylor sat out the Big 12 season, going only 3-10 in its final 13 games before the tournament. But the Bears made sure everyone knew they were in Oklahoma City as they began by knocking off Nebraska 65-49 before dumping out favorite Kansas 71-64. If that was not enough, it became three straight upsets when Texas were sent home from the semi-final with a 76-70 loss. However, Baylor fell at the final hurdle in this most unlikely of title bids, going down 73-60 to Missouri.

Blake Griffin's Oklahoma Sooners were bumped from the Big 12 Tournament at the quarter-final stage by intrastate rival Oklahoma State, going down 71-70 as James Anderson nailed a par of free throws in the final 2.3 seconds to lift the Cowboys, who went a long to bumping their NCAA Tournament seeding to an eventual eight.

Singletary-handed: Performance-of-the-week honors surely belong to Mike Singletary, who scored all 29 of Texas Tech's points during a second-half surge as they came from 21 down to beat Texas A&M 88-83 in Big 12 Tourney play. Singletary finished with 43 points to break a nine-year old tournament scoring record.

It is soccer that is said to be a game of two halves, but Siena's Kenny Hasbrouck recovered from shooting 1-of-10 in the first half to go scored 17 of his 19 points in the second half and lead Siena to a 77-70 win over Niagara, clinching the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference tournament title and the Saints' first back-to-back NCAA Tournament berth in school history.

Third Time Lucky - Cleveland State chose the right moment to figure out Butler as it beat the heavily-favored Bulldogs 57-54 in the Horizon League tournament championship game - the Vikings' first win over Butler in three attempts this season. Each time Butler won on the final play of the game, so the Vikings were probably surprised to see Shelvin Mack and Gordon Hayward both miss late three-point attempts for the Bulldogs.

Fourth Time Lucky - Southern California has made Pac-10 titles an annual occurrence on the football field, but the first ever basketball tournament championship has had to wait. It came at the fourth time of trying on Sunday as the Trojans beat Arizona State 66-63 after coming from 15 points down at half-time.

Talking about good timing, Dallas Green made only one basket but timed it right as he scored with 2.5 seconds left to lift Robert Morris to a 48-46 win over Mount St. Mary's in the Northeast Conference title game. The Colonials had drawn up a play to get top-scorer James Chappell the last look, but it was knocked out of his hands to Green, who hurled it up and got the win.

North Dakota State seems to have this Division I lark figured out. NDSU is going dancing in its first season since making the step up after Ben Woodside nailed a 17-foot three-pointer with three seconds left for a 66-64 win in the Summit League conference final.

"He invented a shot that I hadn't seen in a while, a new one, a kind of leaner and knocked it in," coach Saul Phillips said of Woodside's winning jumper. "I could have drawn up plays until the dry erase board wore out, but he wasn't going to get a better look than that. It's easy to have faith in a young man (like Woodside)."

Dominic Waters slammed home a dunk with 3.5 seconds left to put Portland State in the Big Dance with a 79-77 win over Montana State in the Big Sky Conference tournament championship.

The Washington DC area's only representation in the Big Dance will come from the unlikely source of American, who romped to a 73-57 victory over Holy Cross to take the Patriot League title. With the likes of Georgetown and George Washington falling short, American made it two Tourney berths in a row following last year's brief appearance - the school's first.

Utah State 's Big Blue mascot and New Mexico State's Pistol Pete added some extra spice to their Western Athletic Conference semi-final when a fan offered Big Blue $100 to rip off Pete's mustache. He took the bet, but Pete didn't appreciate it, and tried to choke his rival as a fight broke out between the two. Big Blue had the last laugh though, as Tyler Newbold hit a dramatic three-pointer three seconds from time to win 71-70. A day later, the Aggies clinched the tournament conference crown with a 72-62 win over Nevada to make the Tournament field.

I'm sure it's not a sign that even the Memphis players are now bored of Conference-USA - a league they can seemingly win in their sleep - but they barely celebrated Sunday's 64-39 demolition of Tulsa in the tournament final. "It's just one of our goals accomplished," said senior Robert Dozier, giving plenty away about just where it ranks. "The next big thing is the Tournament. We want to be national champions, so we've got to be ready." Memphis goes into the Big Dance as a No. 2 seed.

Smokey Roberts
FIBA