Home-field advantage is an oft-debated topic in the world of sports. Sure, it's somewhat helpful to have your own fans behind you. But, even if you have the loudest crowd in sports history, what's playing host really worth?
Rarely has the power of a loud and well-organized home crowd been illustrated as plainly as it is in the video above.
See also: 17 College Sports Fans Get Their Hearts Broken in Real Time
Uploaded to YouTube on Saturday, the clip shows two late-game possessions by Columbia University in their Friday night bid to pull off a shocking upset over host Michigan State.
With just three and a half minutes to play, Columbia had the ball and a chance to tie the game or take the lead. But Michigan State's home crowd threw a serious wrench in those plans by in unison chanting a countdown of a fictitious shot clock. Flustered, Columbia tracked time by the crowd's meter instead of the actual clock, not shooting in time and turning over the ball.
Then, a minute later, they did the exact same thing for the exact same result.
It's not the most original ploy, but very, very rarely do you see it work to such great effect in the world of big-time college basketball. Making the fans' feat all the more impressive is that they pulled it off against a supposedly high-IQ team from the Ivy League. No wonder video of the successful operation has been viewed well over 1 million times since Saturday.
In other distracting-crowd news, someone at North Carolina's game against Belmont on Sunday sang Miley Cyrus' hit "Wrecking Ball" really, really loudly while UNC's James McAdoo was at the free throw line. McAdoo missed his shot. We'll let you decide whether or not Miley had something to do with it:

BONUS: 25 of YouTube's Funniest Sports Fails
This runaway vehicle wreaked minor on-field havoc following a high school football championship in Texas last December. But a heroic bystander hopped aboard and put on the brakes.
No casualties occurred, and the clip immediately became Internet legend.
Watch out for the ricochet, goalie! This kid gets it in the right in the chops.
What happens when you put an inflatable dinosaur on rollerblades and ask it to skate down a flight of stairs? Amazingness, that's what.
In sports, to "flop" is to exaggerate the force of contact in hopes of drawing a favorable call from officials. But you've got to time it much, much better than this guy does.
Apparently, if you hug a member of the opposite team after scoring a goal in hockey, you will get punched in the face.
This kid is just in the wrong place at the wrong time...to the benefit of the rest of us.
College football mascots are supposed to represent their schools in a fun, positive light — which doesn't typically include picking fights. Here, the University of Oregon's duck slams the University of Houston's cougar.
Bonus points for the sick elbow drop, though.
Not saying we could successfully lift 432 pounds above our heads, but dang, that looks painful.
German weightlifter Matthias Steiner dropped this massive barbell on his neck during the London Olympics this summer, but escaped serious injury.
Sometimes, when you fail, you actually win.
Why jump over hurdles when you could just RUN STRAIGHT THROUGH THEM?
File under: Never, Ever Gets Old.
After what could best be described as an "optimistic" shot attempt in a game last season, NBA center JaVale McGee showed some nice hustle getting back on defense. Only problem? His team still had the ball.
But that wasn't McGee's only legendary moment. Here, he shows why it's not a good idea to try dunking from the free throw line mid-game.
For some reason, London's Olympic promotions this summer involved hanging Mayor Boris Johnson on a zipline while waving a pair of tiny flags.
Then he got stuck halfway through and it was pretty much the best, funniest, awkwardest thing that could have happened.
Major Leaguer Kendry Morales broke his lower left leg while celebrating a game-winning grand slam in 2010. This edited video provides the before, during and after rundown.
See? White guys can jump? It's just the landing that's the hard part.
The announcer here sums it up perfectly. She calls this attempt from the 1992 Olympics "an absolute failed dive."
What begins as an innocent enough piggyback ride atop a fuzzy mascot turns into a pretty epic collision — and YouTube gold.
Dude! If you're gonna pump up the crowd like that, you can't just faceplant into the sand.
When you think about it, is there any better way to celebrate a touchdown than by pegging an unsuspecting spectator in the face? Bonus points for originality, at least.
You'd think a professional golfer could put the ball in the hole with less than 16 strokes. Kevin Na — and the rest of the world — found out otherwise on this par-four hole at the 2011 Valero Texas Open.
Well, that's one way of doing it...right?
Tie game, clock winding down — it's always better to get one last attempt up than just let the game go into overtime. A full court desperation heave with a 11 seconds to go is never the way to do it, however.
This classic gaffe by the University of Connecticut's Roscoe Smith came during a matchup of top teams in 2011.
Its veracity may be suspect, but this 2008 YouTube classic has more than 12.7 million views, despite a mind-numbing soundtrack.
The summer of 2011 was a tough time for NBA star LeBron James. It was full of lingering ill-will for his decision to the leave the Cleveland Cavaliers and snarky schadenfreude over his initial failure to win a championship with the Miami Heat.
So it makes perfect sense that he'd let off some steam by viciously dunking on a tiny kid at summer camp, right? That's what happens at the 0:43 mark of this video.
We're not quite sure why this mascot thought standing on top of a basketball rim was a good idea.
Homepage image: Gregory Shamus/Getty Images