Sunday Night Dessert: Mavs Swept by Irish

After a tough overtime loss Friday night, Notre Dame completed the sweep of UNO Saturday night with a 1-0 victory. The Mavs had an apparent game-tying goal waived off with three minutes left after John Kemp was whistled for a cross-check. A YouTube video of the play had an obscured shot of the actual offense, but it was clear that referee Mark Wilkins already had his arm raised for the penalty as the crowd reacted to the puck in the net. A channel 3 replay just shown on "Sports Soundoff" showed the penalty shortly after Dan Charleston crossed the blue line. So while Wilkins may have erred in putting Kemp in the box, the no-goal ruling was correct.

Now UNO needs to hope for Bowling Green to win one of two games at Western Michigan this weekend. If Western sweeps the Perverts, Western Michigan moves into eighth place, and UNO goes on the road for the first round of the playoffs. Definitely not where UNO wanted to be at the end of the season. UNO has played some of their best hockey of the entire year in the last three games, but three close losses to second-ranked Notre Dame and fourth-ranked Michigan are still losses. Close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades.

Nebraska basketball had a sloppy first half down at Allen Fieldhouse, but Kansas really didn't put the Huskers away until the middle of the 2nd half. Not a surprise there, but Nebraska really needs to find a win somewhere on the road down the stretch.

Heard an interesting story about Creighton fans at last night's BracketBuster game. Many attendees were oblivious to the starting time of the game, showing up hours early for the game and wondering why they couldn't get into arena. (Hint: the State Wrestling Tournament ran all afternoon, and they needed time to set the basketball court up.) You'd think that after all the commercials and news coverage about the game, more would have paid attention to a simple little detail like the time of the game.

A lot of scuttlebutt is emerging about Patrick Witt's transfer from Nebraska. The timing is interesting, but without anything solid, unseemly rumors sound like sour grapes from Husker fans. Until something comes out more definite, it's best to wish the kid the best. I've long admired Witt; other than his MIP and disturbing the peace incident a year ago, he's done nothing to change my opinion of him.