After watching Memphis completely fall apart in the last two minutes of last night's NCAA championship game, several of us got into a water cooler discussion today about what it means to truly "choke."  Too often, that word is thrown out there simply because someone is mad a game or series of games ends differently than they'd hoped.  However, when a team and/or athlete loses a game or series they were favored to win, this doesn't necessarily qualify as a choke job.  In other words, the Patriots did not choke in the Super Bowl this year -- they were simply beaten that day by a team that outplayed them ... had they played again, the result might very well have been different, but alas ....

Anyway, I was wondering if you all had an opinion as what qualified as "choking" ... we decided to today on one rule -- for it to be a true choke job, one team had to have the game or series completely in hand and the only way to lose would be a colossal blunder or series of blunders that allowed the other team to come back. (By the way, not to take anything away from Kansas, but we all agreed that last night's game qualified as a monumental choke job by Memphis ... and it wasn't just the missed free throws.  The inbounds pass stolen by Kansas and converted into a 3; Dorsey's unbelievably boneheaded foul; and the cherry on top -- not fouling Kansas before they could get off a desperation 3 at the end of regulation.) 

Do you think that any of the A's early 00's playoff failures qualify?? Hard to say ... comments???