The fear two days later: That what we saw in the championship game of the NCAA Tournament on Monday night is an aberration, a tease, an exception to the rule that insists college basketball has lost its way at the offensive end.
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When he reached the stage, supported along the ballroom path to such an exclusive group by a walker, Jerry Tarkanian was helped up a few stairs to basketball immortality.
History is meant to be judged, and yet each classic that has been a national championship game of the NCAA Tournament has owned a unique significance.
This is what one coach in tonight’s national championship of college basketball was asked about Sunday:
This is what becomes a common theme in such times: That when you consider what Wichita State did in college basketball this season that it should give hope to hundreds of teams around the country that such a journey is possible.
Glenn Robinson III is a freshman at Michigan. One of his classes is a humanities course titled “The Cultures of Basketball.” Earlier this year, a certain team was covered in the curriculum, one whose style and attitude altered the game forever.
It took a magic trick by sophomore point guard Trey Burke to get Michigan to the Final Four. To win two more games, he might need to mimic a great escape artist.
Sometime during the second half, Mike Krzyzewski looked for help and found none. He might have reminisced that it was a lot easier coaching a crew of NBA All-Stars in the Olympics.
There is no better drama this time of year than the NCAA Tournament, enough to warrant time on any big screen.
When I see this season’s Florida Gulf Coast basketball team, I see the Jacksonville basketball team of 1969-70. They even play in the same conference, something called the Atlantic Sun. Twenty bucks and the home edition of “Jeopardy!” if you can name all 10 members.
It is March 24, and from mid-November until now, Mountain West basketball teams have played nearly 300 games. They have been ranked, defeated quality opponents, earned good enough results to have entered the NCAA Tournament with the nation’s No. 1 Ratings Percentage Index of all conferences.
Dunks are more exciting than free throws, and that’s stating the obvious, but Doug McDermott is the type of player who excites bettors even though he’s not a big-time dunker.
I suppose there is a silver lining for UNLV basketball today, hidden somewhere in the mess of yet another opening-game loss in the NCAA Tournament.
It was not predetermined, and this is unlikely to be a popular pick. Even since the return of senior forward Ryan Kelly from a foot injury, Duke has been far from dominant. So how did it come to this?
