This crazy Rick Pitino horse story is starting to get legs

The odds of picking a perfect bracket are something like a quintillion to one but this Rick Pitino horse story is almost more of a long shot.

It was blogged earlier that a horse Pitino has a stake in, Goldencents, won the Santa Anita Derby on Saturday.

It was blogged the winning horse in the race after the Derby was named Points Offthebench.

How bizarre was that?

Louisville needed 34 points off the bench Saturday night to hold off Wichita State at the Georgia Dome.

But wait, there’s more.

We started to do some forensic statistical digging before Monday night’s NCAA title game. Call it CSI: Atlanta.

Mark Blaudschun of ajerseyguy.com, Tim Sullivan of the Louisville Courier-Journal and I wanted to calculate how close the win by Points Offthebench actually came to Louisville’s second-half comeback.

We compared the official game book and our personal Twitter logs from Saturday night.

The 10th race at Santa Anita went off at 7:47 p.m. in Atlanta during the Louisville-Wichita State game.

I tweeted at 7:45 p.m. that Wichita State had upped its lead to 11 points with 14 minutes 16 seconds left.

Louisville sub Tim Henderson, who had made four three-point baskets all season, came off the bench at the 13:15 mark. He made two quick three-pointers, the first with 13:00 left and the second at 12:18.

It cut a 12-point lead to six and sparked Louisville to victory.

We estimated Points Offthebench crossed the finish line within minutes of Henderson’s second three-point basket.

ALSO:

Louisville vs. Michigan: How they match up

Louisville vs. Michigan: Previewing the big game

Louisville vs. Michigan: Gratitude adjustment required