'Gimme a T!'

THEY SAY EVERYBODY gets 15 minutes of fame.

For an unnamed Louisville cheerleader, that time came yesterday. Unfortunately, he won't be remembered for pulling off some fancy move such as throwing a coed high into the air and catching her.

No, this ding-dong will go down in history as the cheerleader who almost cost his team the game.

Here's what happened:

Louisville led Pittsburgh, 60-57, with overtime winding down. Kyle Kuric dunked to put the Cardinals ahead by five. The cheerleader, thinking the game was over, then ran onto the court, grabbed the ball and threw it into the air (doing a nice twirl in the process, we might add).

The only problem was the game wasn't quite over.

The referee called a technical foul on the Cardinals - a delay-of-game penalty - and put .5 second back on the clock. Pittsburgh's Ashton Gibbs made the ensuing two free throws and the Panthers had one final chance to tie. But Gibbs failed to get off a final shot and Louisville won, 62-59.

In the end, the cheerleader's gaffe didn't matter. But you can bet that today he's sitting on campus somewhere writing "I will not touch the ball" over and over and over.

"The male cheerleader is coming to an end," Louisville coach Rick Pitino said with a laugh at the start of his postgame news conference. "Now we'll try another sport for him.

"No, I'm sure it was unintentional, but you could actually lose a game that way. Hopefully, he'll learn the rules of basketball next time."

Soon, we will be glued to our televisions, watching yet another NCAA Tournament. And, while it's taken for granted now, there was a time when you couldn't watch college hoops on the tube. In fact, it was on this date in 1940 that the first games were televised when W2XBS broadcasted a doubleheader from New York's Madison Square Garden featuring Pittsburgh against Fordham and New York University against Georgetown.

- Tom Mahon

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