Thursday's Big Dance Review
By Bruce Marshall
Several years ago, after joining the ranks of the television analysts, the late Al McGuire would remind listeners every March about one particular necessity of success in the Big Dance. “If a team is going to win this whole thing,” the former Marquette coach used to say, “it’s going to have to win a close one along the way, to get that monkey off its back.”
McGuire was speaking from experience; his last Marquette team in 1977, the one that finally won him his only championship, had to dodge quite a bullet in the semifinal round that year at the Omni in Atlanta. The then-known Warriors scored a last-second bucket not too unlike the one converted by the Soviets in the 1972 Olympics against Mr. Henry Iba’s USA team when Butch Lee’s full-court pass was caught and remarkably converted by Jerome Whitehead at the buzzer (you can find it on You Tube). Marquette thus won that one over Cedric Maxwell’s UNC Charlotte by a 51-49 count before beating North Carolina in the finale on Monday night. And McGuire would often refer to his Marquette team in that UNCC thriller as a prime example of a championship team “getting that monkey off is back” and winning a close game in the tourney setting.
Well, if we’re talking about monkeys during Thursday’s Day One of Sub-Regional action, it looked like the squadron of those flying types from the Wizard of Oz. We’ve never seen more buzzer beaters and close calls in the first day of sub-regional action; indeed, the five games decided by two points or fewer equaled a record set way back in 1990. Adding in another result decided by 3 points, another by 5, and a few backdoor covers with both sides and “totals” results, and we’re not sure we’ve ever seen a more wild first day of sub-regional action.
Following are some of the bests (and worsts) from Thursday...
Best Game... Tough call here. But we’ll opt for Morehead State’s 62-61 upset over Louisville in Denver. The final ten minutes more resembled a see-saw as the teams went back-and-forth; Louisville’s 48-41 lead was short-lived as a 16-4 run by Morehead put the Ohio Valley rep up by 5 with just over 5 minutes to play. Louisville, playing without leading scorer Preston Knowles due to a foot injury for the last 8:51, then responded with its own 9-0 spurt to assume a 61-57 edge. It was then up to the underdog Eagles to score the last five points of the game, rolling the dice and taking the lead in the final ticks with G Demonte Harper’s three-point shot with 4.2 seconds to play (Harper had earlier missed all five of his triples and 7 of 9 previous shots from the floor). But the play of the game was in fact made by referee LaMar Simpson, who correctly swallowed his whistle on Louisville’s last-second attempt to win the game on a shot (or was it a pass?) by Louisville’s Mike Marra, when some (including TV announcers Verne Lundquist and Bill Raftery) called for a foul on the Eagles’ Kenneth Faried. Raftery quickly changed his tune when looking at the replay, noting that Faried had indeed appeared to go straight up and defend the play cleanly, but we know a lot of refs (many of whom we watched in Thursday action) who would have done the knee-jerk thing and whistled Faried for a foul. And Raftery’s initial reaction showed just how difficult it must have been for Simpson to resists blowing his whistle.
The Eagles also prevailed despite getting a sub-par afternoon of work on the offensive end from their star PF Faried, who converted only 4 of 17 FG attempts for 12 points but did show why he’s the nation’s leading rebounder with 17 caroms. It also marked the second straight year an Ohio Valley rep has scored a first-round upset; last year it was more of the mild variety, but Murray State prevailed over Vanderbilt, 66-65, on another last-second shot.
Honorable mention: Kentucky’s 59-57 win over Princeton wasn’t secured until frosh G Brandon Knight’s graceful, banking lay-in shot with 2 seconds remaining. We don’t like to second-guess the Tigers and HC Sydney Johnson, but for the Ivy champs’ sake we were dreading the Wildcats having the ball with an opportunity at the last shot to win. Sometimes we believe every coach should have a chance to look at the highlights of the 1983 title run by Jim Valvano’s North Carolina State Wolfpack, wherein Jimmy V continued to confound he experts (and opponents) down the stretch of many NCAA Tourney games by committing fouls and daring the opposition to make two free throws. This was still in the days when all fouls beyond the limit were rewarded with one-and-one FT tries, as opposed to only the 7th thru 9th team fouls today. But with UK in the one-and-one in the last half-minute and only having hit 6 of its 11 previous FTs, we would have bet that the 1983 version of Valvano would have dared the Wildcats and put them on the line. Even if converting both ends of the one-and-one, Princeton could win the game with a 3-point basket; if all that was needed was a 2-pointer, we would have taken our chances with either G Dan Mavraides, who hit two clutch shots in a row to pull the Tigers even just moments earlier, or backcourt mate Doug Davis, whose last-second dagger knocked out Harvard in the recent Ivy League playoff. Either way, we would have liked to have seen Princeton have the ball with a chance to win it in the last seconds, instead of giving that opportunity to more-talented Kentucky instead.
Butler’s 60-58 win over Old Dominion in Washington was no less exciting with Matt Howard’s tip-in right at the buzzer. That ODU was still in the game in the second half despite not being able to hit an outside shot was somewhat amazing; we had figured that the day the Monarchs went out would be when their outside shooting betrayed them, as was the case in the final 15 minutes at the Verizon Center. All totaled, there were 21 lead changes in this game, with no side ahead by more than six points.
Pointspread thrillers: There were a number of these as well, including Butler’s aforementioned squeaker against Old Dominion. UCLA also nearly blew all of a 23-point lead in the final minutes against Michigan State. And Utah State, a 2½-point dog vs. Kansas State, had a three-point shot at the buzzer that would have cut the final margin to 73-71. But for pure backdoor thrills, not much could match Wofford’s unlikely cover against BYU, after the Terriers lost touch in the final five minutes or so and seemed destined for a double-digit defeat. Wofford, an 8½-point underdog, cut it close, falling behind by as many as 14 in the last few minutes and having to play catch-up vs. the BYU starters, including Jimmer Fredette, who was still in the game on the Cougars’ final possession and BYU up 11. Fredette’s three-pointer missed with 8 seconds left and the Terriers had a chance to cover, with Cameron Rundles bypassing a layup (which it looked for a moment as if he might take) and instead finding Terry Martin in the corner for a long-range triple that found nothing but net with 0:00.4 to play. Wofford loses 74-66 but gets the money in what might stand as the best backdoor cover we’ll see for the rest of the Dance.
Honorable mention: Those who were able to play an “over” on the UCSB-Florida game before it hit 130 late in the afternoon were treated to quite a thriller at the St. Pete Times Forum...for the “totals” result, that is. The Gators were home and hosed by halftime when up 43-19, so the only remaining drama came with the “totals’ result. Into the last minute and the score at 77-49, free throws ended up pushing the game to 130, including the last two with 15 seconds to play by Florida reserve G Kyle McClanahan, only a 50% FT shooter all season. McClanhan calmly hit both to push the total to 130.
Player of the Day: Kevin Anderson, Richmond... The Spiders’ senior guard has probably had better efforts throughout his career, but none were as clutch as his contributions on Thursday at Denver as UR rallied past Vandy 69-66. A series of big baskets down the stretch, including a near impossible shot while falling away toward the baseline, staked the Spiders to their final 3-point edge in the waning seconds, from which Vandy could not recover. Anderson ended up with 25 points on the day.
Injury of the day: Jeff Brooks, Penn State... The Nittany Lions’ best frontliner went out in the first minute of the second half against Temple, re-injuring the same right shoulder that temporarily sidelined him in early February. His absence did not help Penn State in an eventual 66-64 defeat courtesy of a last-second, leaning jumper by Juan Fernandez that came of the heels of a deep Talor Battle triple that tied the score a few seconds earlier.
Disappointing teams of the day: St. John’s & Missouri... A few Big East observers sensed that Steve Lavin’s Red Storm might have peaked a few weeks too early and could be vulnerable in Denver against Gonzaga. The injury to valuable 6'5 swingman D.J. Kennedy didn’t help matters, and St. John’s never even had a look at the Zags in an 86-71 defeat. Most embarrassing was the 41-18 rebound edge owned by Gonzaga, a depressing way for Lavs’ mostly-upbeat first season to conclude. Meanwhile, Mizzou was also out of it from the early going and put up little resistance against Cincinnati in a 78-63 defeat at the Verizon Center in D.C. The Bearacts, no collection of sharpshooters, hit 54% from the floor and kept Mike Anderson’s transition game in check. Now, let’s see about those rumors regarding a possible Anderson move to Arkansas...
Thursday spread and conference results: Not a bad day for big chalk, as four of six double-digit favorites prevailed, although overall it was an 8-6 edge for the underdogs (with Mizzou-Cincy and Gonzaga-St. John’s called as pick’em for these purposes). Big East teams covered in 3 of 5 chances.
Let’s see what transpires on Friday...and if any more teams can get Al McGuire’s “monkey” off of their backs.