March 28 - The Best Ever?

Superlatives are flying all over the nation’s airwaves this morning as pundits and talk show hosts from around the country are trying to assess where this past weekend ranks in the history of college basketball. Lacking imagination, most are describing this weekend’s action with sophomoric words such as “incredible,” “amazing,” “unbelievable,” and “greatest.” I usually lampoon such hyperbole, but in this instance, such description is appropriate. I say this because the four regional finals played over this past weekend were truly extraordinary. Quite simply, we had the privilege of witnessing four terrific games, three of which were certifiably historic and destined to be featured in future CBS montages. Do you want to know how good it was? Well, if this were boxing, it would have been like watching Hagler/Hearns, Leonard/Hearns, Pryor/Arguello, and Haggler/Mugabi all fight in one weekend. Usually, we get one great Regional Final a year and are lucky to see a second. This year we got three and the fourth was teetering on the edge. And not only did we get four great games, but in those games, we got all of the basic elements that make the tourney such a special event. We had the great comebacks and the great buzzer beaters. We had the upstarts looking to pull off the big upset and the “chosen” fighting for their lives. We had storied programs fighting it out with one another and superstars rising to the top. In a nutshell, over the past 48 hours, we got to see four of those “shining moments” that CBS loves to memorialize. That takes us well past our yearly quota, but let’s hope there is still at least one other moment tucked away in the corner that we can open next weekend. If so, I will have no qualms declaring this tourney to be the most exciting in history.

Where do we begin? Well, let’s start off with Saturday’s matinee out in Albuquerque featuring West Virginia and Louisville. This future Big East rivalry started off with a bang as West Virginia came out and started making threes from spots as far away as West Texas. In fact, one three was launched from Juarez and had to clear customs before it was counted. The Mountaineers were absolutely dialed in and there was nothing Louisville could do to stop the juggernaut. The last team to be on the receiving end of so many bombs was North Vietnam in the early 1970s. At one point, WVU was a disgusting 17/22 from three. Some teams don’t go 17/22 during layup drills, yet WVU was doing it from 22 feet and sometimes further. But even as Louisville was getting bombed into oblivion, they were standing up and fighting. It was almost as if they were coached by a guy named Churchill and not Ricky P. And I knew when they cut the lead from 21 to 13 at half, they were still alive. You could tell that the Cards took some solace in the fact that they had taken West Virginia’s best punch and yet were still in the fight.

Despite this new found confidence and some improved defense, Louisville was unable to make a dent in WVU’s lead for the first eight minutes of the second half. They put together a little run at about the ten minute mark but WVU answered in a big way, and when Kevin Pittsnoggle (25 points) made a couple of threes around the five minute mark, WVU still led by ten. But that is when the clock struck midnight for this year’s Cinderfella and it was time for Beilein’s boys to haul it back to beautiful Morgantown. Louisville was clearly the more athletic team and it began to show. They got every lose ball late in the game and their guards were breaking WVU defenders down all over the place. And despite losing its best player with four minutes to go, Louisville was able to complete the comeback and have a chance to win the game in regulation with a buzzer beater. That effort came up short, but in overtime, it was all Louisville. WVU had exhausted their supply of ordinance in regulation and had nothing left in the extra period. Guys started missing threes and nobody could stop Louisville’s guards from getting to the basket. And so when the clock sounded, Louisville had secured one of the more amazing comebacks in tourney history and, in doing so, Coach Rick Pitino became the first man in history to lead three different schools to the Final Four. It seemed that Pitino was more relieved than ecstatic after the game, and rightfully so since he knows his team dodged a giant bullet. After all, how many teams give up 18 threes and still find a way to win? Other than Louisville, I am not sure that list is too deep.

Saturday evening’s nightcap between Illinois and Arizona was nothing short of extraordinary and I don’t mean that in a Liz Phair kind of way. I mean it was just about the most interesting and exciting Regional Final I have ever seen and I do not say that lightly. This was an utter slugfest between two of the best teams in the country, played right in the Illini’s backyard of Chicago. I felt the first half started off badly for Illinois. They had the crowd behind them and guards Dee Brown and Luther Head were on fire, but Arizona countered every Illinois run with one of their own. More importantly, Channing Frye and Hassan Adams were having their way with Illinois and I got the feeling that once Salim Stoudamire got in the action, Arizona was going to walk away. Well, Salim never did get into the fight, but that didn’t keep Arizona from mauling Illinois in the second half. Led by Frye, Arizona built a fifteen point lead with just four minutes to go. At this point, it was time to pull the feeding tube because the Illini were deader than dead. Heck, I am not sure even Congress would have butted in to save this corpse because there was nothing left to save. But a funny thing happened on the way to the funeral. After last rites were administered, Illinois began to rally. Behind Deron Williams, the Illini began fighting their way back and with a minute to go, Arizona led by only eight. That is still a big deficit, but at least the patient had a pulse.

This is when Arizona simply collapsed. They turned the ball over a couple of times off inbounds passes and Williams made the Cats pay as Illinois pulled even at the end of regulation. In doing so, the Illini completed what is probably the greatest comeback in NCAA tourney history. Things only got worse for Arizona from there as Illinois surged to a six point lead in overtime. Arizona could have folded right there but they rallied and trailed by only one with sixteen seconds to go. That set the stage for Lute Olsen to commit one of history’s great coaching blunders. This is the setting. Olsen has two guns -Stoudamire and Frye - at his disposal, yet he calls an ill-conceived play designed for Hassan Adams. What in the hell was skin flute thinking? That is tantamount to taking Tom Brady out of a Super Bowl with the game on the line. Lute, have you ever heard the term: “you dance with the gal who brought you to the dance.” Olsen arrived at the dance with Beyonce, yet he ended up dancing with Shirley from Good Times. That is not the way it is supposed to work and Lute got rewarded for his lunacy with a ticket back to Tuscon. Now I am sure Olsen apologists will argue that Stoudamire had a cold hand on Saturday while Adams was feeling it, but that is no excuse. You have to give Salim a shot to win that game. I am not sure Salim would have taken Deron Williams off the dribble to win the game, but you have to give him a shot. Lute has done some great things at Arizona, but he has lost a bunch of tough ones as well. None, however, was tougher than the loss he suffered on Saturday night. That is the kind of loss that one never gets over and I rank it up there as one of the great stingers of all time.

We now move on to Sunday and North Carolina’s win over Whiskey. Of all the games this weekend, this is the only one that doesn’t have the cache to be considered historic. Don’t get me wrong – it was a terrific game that was super-competitive. But it fell short of being a classic. The reason why it fell short was Wisconsin simply ran out of bullets and UNC closed at the finish to win by two and half lengths. The Badgers were game for 35 minutes, but UNC just had too many horses. Nonetheless, this was an awkward matchup for UNC and if you had told me they were going to score 44 points in the first half and be tied, I would have had you committed to an insane asylum. Yet that is where things stood at half and my guess is that the students down on Franklin Street could feel another UNC collapse coming on. And I bet a there more then a few tight sphincters in Chapel Hill when Whiskey jumped out to that early second half lead. But although Whiskey fought like hell, UNC executed when they had to and Sean May delivered when the Heels needed him most. It wasn’t all that pretty for UNC, but aesthetics don’t count when Final four berths are on the line. With the win, UNC moves on to St. Louis, a city that sits on the Mississippi. That river proved to be good luck for UNC in 1982 and 1993 (New Orleans) and perhaps it will be good luck once again.

It is funny, but after a very mediocre weekend, the national press is finally coming around to what I have been saying all year. This is a talented Carolina team, but not necessarily a very good team. This team simply cannot put anyone away and it’s usually because of mistakes committed by Ray Felton. If there was a way to measure a player’s basketball IQ, I would predict he would tally nothing higher then a 65. Felton is definitely on my all “special ed” team along with Aaron Miles of Kansas, Chris Thomas of Notre Dame and Chris Taft of Pitt. I cannot begin to count how many times over the past three years I have seen this guy kick a ball away or put up an idiotic shot at a crucial time. And he is probably the reason why UNC will not win this year. I say this because when you look back at UNC’s championships from 1982 and 1993, they were led by solid floor leaders - Derrick Phelps and Jimmy Black - that could be counted on to do the right thing in crunch time. Felton is just not this guy. In fact, he kind of reminds me of Jeff McInnis who played a leading role in short-circuiting the1995 Tar Heels.

While Felton is a disaster waiting to happen, Sean May is emerging as the star of this tourney. If Carolina is able to win, it will be because May stepped up and dominated down low. He was more then Whiskey could handle on Sunday and Michigan State could have big problems with his bulk next Saturday. He is a wide body under almost any definition and I am not sure there in anyone left in the tourney that can stop this guy. If UNC and May are able to win, I believe Scott and Sean May will become only the third father-son duo to win NCAA championships as players. The Bibby’s (Mike 97 and Henry 70) and the Johnson’s (Marquess 75 and Kris 95) both accomplished the feat, but I cannot recall another winning pair, at least not over the past 45 years. The Walton’s came close in 2001 but Luke’s team finished in second place.

To wrap up the weekend, we go to Austin, where Michigan State and Kentucky played in a no holds barred death match. This was the rubber game of a three game regional final matchup that goes back to 1978 when Kentucky took out a kid named Magic Johnson on its way to the national championship. MSU got its revenge in 1999 when the Spartans ended Kentucky’s three year string of Final Fours. And yesterday, MSU made it two for the good guys when they dispatched what I thought was an inferior team from Lexington. Can you believe what MSU just did? They killed the two most evil dragons – Duke and Kentucky – in college basketball within 48 hours of each other. If J.R. Tolkein were alive today, he would probably write a 500 page novel to honor the occasion.

As for the game, it easily qualified as a classic. It was a double overtime thriller that had loads of interesting moments, including one of the craziest buzzer beaters you will ever see. Heck, if it takes five minutes to review, you know it was crazy. I thought the key for Michigan State was Shannon Brown. Shannon is a 31 percent shooter from three on the year who ended up hitting 5/6 yesterday and it seemed each came at a time when MSU really needed a big shot. He was simply fantastic and he was needed because MSU shooting specialist Chris Hill has folded like a chair over the past few weeks. Hill is probably the Spartan’s best threat from three but he is a scintillating 1/16 during the tourney. He clearly lacks confidence and he was actually benched yesterday for passing up an open shot. Nonetheless, Brown shouldered Hill’s load and his contribution went a long way towards securing the win for Michigan State. The Spartans were also helped out along the way by Kentucky coach Tubby Smith who appeared to lose interest in this thriller sometime early in the second overtime. That is the only explanation I have for why he had some questionable players out on the floor during the second overtime. Hey Tubby, this is not Little League. There is no rule that says everyone has to play. The object of the game is to score points, but Smith had guys out there who were woefully under-equipped to succeed. Unfortunately for UK fans, Smith didn’t figure this out until it was too late. It was not a shining moment for Smith who has a bit of explaining to do down in Lexington. He hasn’t been to a Final Four since 1998 and he inherited that team. With his own guys, Smith has been blanked seven times and many of those losses came against lower seeds. Seven years is an eternity down in horse country and Smith better pull something together soon or one of coaching’s plum jobs will have a vacancy.