The 2012-13 Voodoo Five Awards: Part 2

In Part 1 of the Voodoo Five Awards yesterday, we stuck to the safer topics, like the best teams and best athletes of the 2012-13 USF athletic season. Today we're going to hit a few more highlights, but we're going to get into the real heavy stuff, too, and look at some of the things that really bothered us. And there were plenty of those this year.

BEST GAME

JAMIE: The women's basketball win over Texas Tech in the NCAA tournament edges out the football win over Nevada, because Jose wasn't actively trying to give away the basketball game like Skip was in Reno.

COLLIN: NCAA women's basketball win over Texas Tech. Or the 19 inning baseball win over Notre Dame.

GARY: The two NCAA women's basketball games vs Texas Tech and California. Honorable mention: the insane triple-overtime basketball game vs. Bowling Green.

RYAN: Definitely the Texas Tech and Cal games for women's basketball in the NCAA Tournament.

ANDREW: Well, I was pretty hyped about the Nevada football game. Back and forth, on the road, against a good team that had won its conference the previous year. At the time it was exciting as heck. And Andre Davis became a USF fan household name. 12 catches for 191 yards and two insane scores, including the 56-yard game-winner.

WORST GAME

JAMIE: So many quality candidates! I could go with an exciting and painful loss, like the football games against Syracuse and Temple, or a just plain agonizing loss, like Seton Hall at MSG or the baseball game against UConn. Or I could go with a full-fledged beatdown, like the Sun Dome reopener against C. Florida, or about six other basketball games.

But I think the worst of the worst was Miami 40, USF 9. Against a team that wasn't really any better than the one the Bulls had beaten two years earlier, USF completely wet the bed. They burned Bobby Eveld's redshirt, only to see him get hurt in the first quarter. They played their usual terrible defensive game. Skip Holtz spectacularly botched the clock at the end of the first half. He called for not one but two pointless field goals in the fourth quarter, with his team hopelessly behind. And all this happened while the news of Rutgers and Maryland leaving for the B1G was coming out, which pretty much ended the Big East (and consequently, USF's athletic relevance) as we know it. I can't imagine a worse day than that.

COLLIN: Baseball vs. UConn, obviously. Super easy snap call.

GARY: I just want to make sure I list all the candidates. Pretty much any football game, but especially Pitt. I've never seen a team win by so many points while giving so few fucks. Men's soccer vs. Tulsa, in which USF lucked into an NCAA home game against a team they beat in the regular season, then lost. Softball getting run-ruled by Florida in the NCAAs. Baseball, good God, how do you blow a 7-0 lead at home to the bottom seed in a winner's bracket game? The Sun Dome reopening embarrassment against UCF, which if you'll remember was supposed to be against a "major conference opponent," but was instead an inept performance against an obnoxious local rival. What a clusterfuck that was. And the flat 46-42 loss to Seton Hall in the last Big East Tournament. Sad way to go out, even by USF standards. Did I forget any?

RYAN: Baseball against UConn is an easy pick here, but I had the privilege of not seeing that one live, so I have to go with men's basketball against Seton Hall in the Big East tournament. The Bulls were playing pretty scrappy basketball down the stretch, but this game literally shat all over their season and then some. It was quite possibly the worst basketball game I've ever laid eyes on. Actually I take that back, it was undoubtedly the worst basketball game I've ever laid eyes on. USF held a 20-17 (TWENTY TO SEVENTEEN) lead at halftime, then by some miracle of God managed to extend that to 37-29 (THIRTY-SEVEN TO TWENTY-NINE) with just three minutes to go. At that moment I turned to my father and said, "One more basket ices this." They didn't get one more basket. Seton Hall scored eight points in the last three minutes after barely scoring eight the entire half, forced overtime, and won after Victor Rudd missed a three because the world is destined to end on a Victor Rudd missed three. I suppose it was only fitting that we were the first team eliminated from the final Big East tournament. I need to shower.

ANDREW: Ryan has it right, it's that abysmal Big East Tournament game against Seton Hall. I was at that game with Collin, and it was horrifying. Even though the game was low-scoring, lower scoring than your average nine-hole golf round, USF was oddly in control until the last three minutes. Seton Hall couldn't do crap. for 37 minutes. We went 16-for-60 shooting or something awful like that.

BIGGEST UPSET

JAMIE: Were there any? I don't think there were any. I pass.

COLLIN: Men's basketball beating Georgetown?? Otherwise can't really think of one.

GARY: Not so much an upset but more a "how the hell did we win that?" Football at Nevada. USF had no business winning that game. None. And if this category can honor inexplicable victory, the Bowling Green game deserves mention here too.

RYAN: How the hell did men's basketball beat Georgetown? The only reason this wasn't my pick for best game is because the rest of the season kind of ruined it. Georgetown ripped off an eleven-game winning streak after this game, and USF started on a ten-game losing streak. Didn't matter. The game was representative of the guts that the USF basketball team had at one point in the season and lost down the stretch (see the previous category). The Bulls fell behind by double digits early, then literally everyone drank magic three juice and started draining threes like nobody's business until they took the lead. Then there was that mad scramble for the ball at the end where everyone ran over each other cartoon style but managed to keep it in bounds... this was an awesome game.

FUNNIEST STORY

JAMIE: I'm giving this to the reason the lights went off in the Sun Dome when USF was trying to wrap up an overtime win against Bowling Green, a team they shouldn't have needed overtime to beat in the first place.

For those interested, lights went out at SunDome because automatic timer was not disabled #USF

— Mike Griffin (@mikegriffinFL) December 22, 2012

After that, the Falcons reorganized and forced a second overtime. USF finally won in the third overtime.

Honorable mention: The USF trustee who fired off an angry and publicly searchable email to Judy after the loss to Temple.

COLLIN: Struggling with this one, skip it.

GARY: Perhaps my long years of coinciding USF fandom and Internet usage make me the only person capable of finding the humor in this, but... that stupid little tidbit from guess who? (McMurphy) about USF "blocking UCF's admission to the Big East." God, that was a joke on so many levels.

#1, so what? USF has a vote on expansion matters and the right to use it as they fit. Other schools did - Villanova's opposition to Temple, or Pittsburgh's to Villanova's stadium plan, were no secret. #2, the implication that C. Florida had some inherent right to be in the Big East Conference. #3, how hilarious it is that anyone thought USF had that kind of clout, or (3b) that we wouldn't use it on something more important, like saving the goddamn league, or taking a $1 billion TV deal when it was an option. #4, C. Florida was being its usual obnoxious self, and on a ton of stupidity-induced NCAA probation to boot. So if USF did argue against adding them, it probably wasn't a hard sell. #5, C. Florida got invited to the Big East like three weeks after that, so I guess the blockade wasn't all that effective. We await a apology, or at least a correction.

(EDITOR'S NOTE: That story was published in the window for last year's awards, but Gary was so riled up about it 13 months later that I allowed the vote.)

RYAN: I can't think of very many instances where I laughed this season, so I'm going to give a shoutout to that one time where we were all so frustrated by Skip Holtz and his awful game management during the Louisville game that the game thread just devolved into making haikus about things we'd rather be doing. Off the top of my head I believe those included arguing with significant others and online banking.

BIGGEST CONTROVERSY

JAMIE: A tie between USF's shameless lying about ticket sales and attendance at the FSU game, and anything involving Doug Woolard and contracts, either his own overstuffed incentive-bloated boondoggle, or extending and giving away $1.5 million to Skip Holtz for no good reason.

COLLIN: Maybe Jose's contract running out and him not getting a new one until several weeks after his NCAA tournament run ended?

GARY: The dissolution of the Big East Conference. It doesn't seem like it because of how smoothly it went, but it's amazing how much got settled in such a short time. It's only been six months since Tulane, the last straw that sent the Catholic 7 to leave the league, was added. But in that time we've already negotiated a complete settlement with the basketball schools, including the money, NCAA units, Big East name, Madison Square Garden tournament, expansion fees, and so on, and with zero apparent hard feelings. It is a tremendous gift to have Mike Aresco on our side. That shit could have dragged on for years.

RYAN: Skip Holtz's existence.

ANDREW: Is Skip still getting paid by USF even though he's at Louisiana Tech? (Editor's note: He sure is! $500K by USF and $500K by Louisiana Tech.) If that clause wasn't in his deal, then yes this should be the biggest controversy.