“One Shining Moment” Is Light on Utah

With Florida’s dramatic upheaval of Houston last night, the world now has a men’s college basketball 2024-2025 champion.

For college hoops fans, the dust has settled, seats are empty, the hardwood lay cold and bare and into the offseason we go.

But with a newly crowned champion, Florida's 3^rd overall title and the SEC’s first since 2012, comes one last emotional high for fans of the sport before they hit that 7 month hiatus.

It comes in the form of “One Shining Moment”, the video montage played at the tail end of the big dance, that revisits some of the best story lines of the madness all set to David Barrett’s song of the same name.

Buzzer beaters, upsets, broken records, sweet throw downs and heartbreaking losses are all jam packed into the swift moving compilation, which is normally around three minutes long.

It’s a true blink and you’ll miss it type of moment as you see the players, highlights and coaches roll by of most of the 68 teams who appeared in the postseason bracket.

Now, as one could imagine, not all teams demand the same amount of screen time.

You are guaranteed to see much more of the champ, such as Florida, then you would Alabama State or Mt. St. Mary’s.

Teams that made it further, get more moments, because they had more moments.

It’s simple math.

Still, that doesn’t prevent fans from feeling as if their favorite teams were under represented in the clip.

Trust me, as someone who used to get upset that the new “NBA 2K” game didn’t show Al Jefferson or the Utah Jazz in their reveal trailer I understand it, it’s not a slight, but rather a common thing mindset fans.

Afterall, Utah saw two teams make the field of 64, in both BYU and Utah State.

BYU even made it as far as the sweet 16, for the first time since 2011, before falling to a red-hot Alabama team.

With Utah State’s first round loss to UCLA and BYU’s 3 appearances, that’s 4 total games for the creators to sift through and find a moment worthy of “shining” for the local squads.

Seems pretty decent right?

Eh, not so much.

Utah State’s basketball team wouldn't make a single appearance in the 3 minutes and 6 seconds of run time.

There was some small representation of the Aggies coming in the form of a quick peek at their band right at the 13 second mark, showcasing a USU drummer over a drum set.

If it’s any consolation for Utah State, former Aggie, Steven Ashworth, was shown hitting a three for Creighton 50 seconds in, followed immediately by a look at his son.

Ok, well maybe a 72-47 loss in the opening round isn’t enough to get some recognition from CBS for the Aggies.

So what about BYU and their two wins with a sweet 16 appearance?

Despite the resume, the screen time wasn’t much better.

They appeared in a total of two “moments”, and only one was positive.

The first “moment” saw the heir to the tater tot throne, Richie Saunders, celebrating while running back up the floor after hitting a triple right at the 1:13 spot of the clip.

The negative was BYU reemerging nearly ten seconds later in a montage within the montage.

For nearly three full seconds, 1:24-1:27, the end of season video shows Alabama guard, Mark Sears, burying BYU behind three triples.

This would be not even half of the ten deep balls he ended up knocking down that night as Alabama set a record for most three-pointers made in a single tournament game with 25 makes from beyond the arc.

Utah State gets a band member, BYU gets a quick look at a happy Saunders before being launched into a traumatic reminder of Alabama shooting 49 percent from three on 51 attempts.

So if you are a fan of either school or just love local sports, you’ll be alright If you sit this year’s “one shining moment” out.

But, if you love college basketball, and reliving some of the best moments from the tournament, the CBS production is an obvious must watch as it’s been every year since 1987.