Our Daily Dread: Now that Jim Cramer has no excuse for living, what's Syracuse's excuse for moving forward?

Julie Jacobson/Associated Press
Connecticut's Kemba Walker lays on the floor after missing a shot at the end of the fifth overtime period against Syracuse on Thursday.

Thursday, we dreaded the thought of another Pac-10 basketball money-making basketball tournament, wondering what really gets resolved by these four-day boondoggles which really is a celebration of what the conference did or didn't do during the year, and giving some school the hope that it can mess up the general structure of the NCAA tournament next week by surviving and advancing (where'd we come up with that stupid phrase?).

And then Syracuse-UConn happens Thursday night (box score linked here).

On a night when the real overtime battle played out earlier -- Comedy Central's Jon Stewart dismantling CNBC blowhard Jim Cramer, which "The Daily Show" couldn't even contain in its half-hour window and had to put the entire 25-minute "weeklong feud of the century" on its website (story linked here ... or watch the full episode here) -- those who stayed up past their kid's bedtime probably never see a more intense six OT game in their sports TV viewing lives.

It would have been only better if it were a water polo match. That way, if they stopped competing, they'd actually die.

And just when you thought it ended, it didn't. And it didn't again. And again. It wasn't continuing because of ineptness, but because of grit and determination not to lose.

Here's the sixth OT, before ESPN takes it off YouTube for copyright infringement:

Again, ESPN pushes the discussion by driving home these ridiculous numbers on a subsequent "SportsCenter":

== The chances of an NCAA Division I game going to six overtimes are about 1 in 122,000.

== With about 5,000 Division I games played annually, a six-OT game would be expected once every 24.4 years.

So, it was about 28 years ago, when Cincinnati beat Bradley in seven overtimes, 75-73, on Dec. 21, 1981.

More stats from the Wall Street Journal (linked here):

== There have been 136,439 Division I college-hoops games since the 1980-1981 season through Thursday, according to Robbie Allen of StatSheet. And only those two games extended into six extra periods

And that's not even a slice of the best part of the game. This is Big East, elbows flying, refs swallowing their whistles ... surviving this in regulation is crazy enough.

But what's now the residual effect for the Orangemen who must be blue in the face this morning and realize they have to play West Virginia in the semifinals tonight, back at Madison Square Garden, just for the right to get to the Big East final on Saturday against either Louisville or Villanova?

Does Jim Boeheim rest some of his players, like 67-minute man Jonny Flynn, who can't even afford an extra "h" in his first name, so they don't run out of gas when the real tournament begins? Coach management is key to this now.

It's not the time to drive everyone to the ground just to win a mini-circus event for the TV cameras.

"I just wanted to get the game over with," Flynn said afterward. "I was thinking, 'Lord, just get this game over with. Whoever wins the game, let's just get it over with.'"

Because neither team actually benefitted from winning, and neither really suffered much from losing. Which isn't what a tournament should be about. And because so many players fouled out, the guys left on the court for the fifth and sixth OTs could have been excused for not even knowing how to run the offense. Maybe that's why it ended up as a 10-point difference. Syracuse had a better than average deeper bench; UConn just kept missing free throws.

Remember that when it's time to pick the Huskies in your pool next week. And Jim Calhoun doesn't get paid extra for overtime.

Now, maybe this is over, we can go back to the real Syracuse-UConn controversy from January -- the women's teams (story linked here). That's really what what needs to be resolved.

Heads up: ESPN Classic will show the game today, from 8:30 a.m. to noon, then again on ESPNU from noon to 4 p.m. Yes, that's how long it took.