While Melo’s away, Kemba Walker will play

The Big East Tournament is the NCAA Tournament inside the NCAA Tournament. Makes sense, right? Of course it does. There are so many good teams in the conference that the week long freak show in Madison Square Garden always guarantees some type of fireworks. Yesterday, we all witnessed the ghost of Tom Donaghy pull a fast one on Rutgers in the closing moments of their game with St. Johns. Today, there was no controversy, just Kemba Walker.

To be honest, Walker’s game winning jumper over Pittsburgh had all the signs for an epic let down if Pittsburgh happened to be your squad. For one, they failed to grab the most important rebound of the game off a Kemba missed floater moments earlier. Giving a player of that caliber a second attempt in the same game to rip your heart out just isn’t smart basketball. Secondly, Pittsburgh got caught on a screen leaving big man Gary McGhee on Kemba. You could sense the fear in his eyes and the entire team as the play went down. It’s like he was the only one at the party left to dance with the girl no one else would even think twice about walking up on.

Poor guy.

With no Kobe Bryant ankle insurance to his name, the big man was left on an island and UConn’s go-to-assassin disrespected him in the mecca of basketball arenas for the world to see. Watching the shot go in – and not even hit the rim at that – was icing on the cake. To be fair, Pitt will still be a top two seed in the “big dance” (maybe a #1), so it may not be that serious. But, from a pride standpoint (and that’s all you have as a man) McGhee will never live this moment down; mainly because it will be on the highlight reels for the Big East Tournament for years to come.

One would think that with the world we live in McGhee’s Twitter replies would be in shambles right now. And you know what? They are.