By Art Spander
For Maven Sports
MINNEAPOLIS — You know the story. Everyone in America does. The basketball team that embarrassed itself. That made the wrong kind of history.
Copyright 2019, The Maven
By Art Spander
For Maven Sports
MINNEAPOLIS — It was the right call, but it came at an awful time. A shooting foul, on a 3-point attempt no less, with roughly a half-second to play.
Copyright 2019, The Maven
By Art Spander
For Maven Sports
MINNEAPOLIS — It’s gray and gloomy, which is not unusual this time of year in Minnesota; perfect weather for walking through the enclosed passageways from one downtown building to another — gerbil tunnels, they’re called — or hosting an NCAA final that doesn’t seem like an NCAA final.
Copyright 2019, The Maven
By Art Spander
SAN ANTONIO — Those Philly jokes, how the fans once booed Santa Claus before a football game, all the zingers by the comedians who had a reference about brotherly love? Well, look who’s laughing now. And cheering.
First the Eagles win the Super Bowl. Then Villanova wins the NCAA basketball championship. Any day now, the Phillies could win the World Series. Well, let’s not get carried away.
But Villanova certainly carried the title away, for the second time in three years, destroying what we believed to be a solid Michigan team, 79-62, on Monday night at the Alamodome.
The Wildcats had Michigan coach John Beilein sighing, “We didn’t make some shots we usually make ... We needed to play better, but even if we played our best it would have been difficult to win that game with what DiVincenzo did.”
That’s Donte DiVincenzo, who had 31 for Nova.
A little honesty there. A little candor. A lot of awe.
Villanova won all six of its tournament games by at least 10 points. The semi-little Catholic school (enrollment around 10,000) could be building a dynasty.
No seniors in the lineup, although both Jalen Brunson, the AP national player of the year, and Mikal Bridges will probably leave for the NBA. No one-and-dones. Just a lot of talented kids who were brought in by coach Jay Wright and allowed to develop.
Not that they don’t arrive ready to play. DiVincenzo, voted most outstanding player in the final, is a red-shirt sophomore. He got 19 of his 31 in the first half.
Scoring is what the Wildcats do. They led the country in that stat.
They also lead the country in what matters most, winning the big one.
But what made the difference Monday night was the way Villanova played defense. Michigan jumped into a 21-14 lead midway through the first half. Nova was missing the threes it made in the semifinal against Kansas. But soon after, it wouldn’t miss the chance to dominate the game.
By halftime, Nova was up 37-28 and shooting 45 percent. Then they started connecting. Then the result became foregone. Villanova went ahead by 22. Cue up “One Shining Moment.”
The 31 by DiVincenzo, who entered with some two and a half minutes gone, were the most ever in a title game by a non-starter.
“All I was trying to do was play hard,” said DiVicenzo, who is from Delaware, near Philly.
Such humility. ”He’s a killer,” said Bridges. “He came out there and was aggressive, defensively and offensively. He carried us tonight.”
And he has two more years of eligibility.
“They saw a championship team two years ago,” said Beilein, referring to when Nova beat North Carolina in the last second of the 2016 final. “They said, let’s work and get better. So many young men are in a hurry to get out of the best years of their life. I like the way Jay Wright recruits, getting kids with the right values.”
That’s fine. But they also need the right skills. The Nova athletes certainly have them.
“Anytime you get in a rhythm like that,” Michigan’s Muhammad-Ali Abdur-Rahkman said of DiVincenzo, “you can pull up from anywhere and just knock it down. It’s tougth to stop.”
Basketball is getting people who know how to play to improve as the days and months go on; to feel confident and comfortable with your teammates and yourself. Villanova has achieved all of that.
“Villanova,” said Beilein, “has done a great job of getting the right kids. And we try as well. When you look at the whole package, they have it, experience, rare in college basketball, shooters at every position and defenders.
“That team right there could win a lot of Final Fours, not just one in 2018.”
By Art Spander
Special to Newsday
SAN ANTONIO — The official end of the miracle, if not the game, came with 1:39 on the clock. That’s when a crew brought the wheelchair that had been Sister Jean Dolores Schmidt’s throne the past few weeks down to the concourse in front of the stands, where she watched from near the tunnel.
Loyola, which had led by 10 in the second half, now trailed by eight. Not even the smile of the 98-year-old nun who had become the mascot of Loyola-Chicago — and, for much of March, the face of college basketball — was going to change the eventual result.
Copyright © 2018 Newsday. All rights reserved.
By Art Spander
GLENDALE, Ariz. — The road ended here. So did the dream. So wonderful a story, the outsider, the small school with the big plan, to stand college basketball on its ear, to beat the big boys with some big men and tenacious defense.
Gonzaga, the “Zags,” as it said in white letters on their blue tops, was ahead, leading North Carolina by a point Saturday night in the NCAA basketball championship of 2017, 1 minute and 40 seconds from the win.
And then never scored again. And then thrashed and missed and fouled and fell. And just like that it seemed, so quickly, a royal coach turning into a pumpkin, a magnificent season turning into a disappointment: Carolina was a 71-65 winner.
There were the Zags, leaning on each others’ shoulders, fighting back tears, knowing the season was finished, the goal unreached. They had lost for only the second time, finished the season 37-2. But it was the wrong game to lose, the game that would have given the school the sporting respect it seeks.
For Carolina, with so much history and six national championships, there was redemption. A year ago, the Tar Heels were beaten in the NCAA final with a second to play by Villanova. This time, it was Carolina’s turn.
“One of the things we talked about,” said Roy Williams, the Carolina coach, “was whether this group was tough enough. I think they were tough enough tonight.”
Tough enough and relentless enough. Defense wins, we’re told, and defense means persistence, tenacity and resilience. Carolina shot 30 percent in the first half, 35 percent for the game. But it battered and badgered Gonzaga after intermission. The Zags shot just 27 percent in the second half.
You can’t lose if the other team doesn’t score. In the last 1:40 of the most important game in the Zags’ history, they didn’t score.
They had a turnover, missed a jumper and had a shot blocked. The one-point lead became a one-point deficit, then a three-point deficit. Then five. It was over.
Przemek Karnowski, the senior, the 7-footer from Poland, usually so capable under the basket with his twists and turns and hook shots, was a sad 1-for-8. If Carolina didn’t know how to get the ball in the basket, it did know how to keep the Zags from getting it in.
“We got good shots,” insisted Mark Few, the Zags' coach. “We had the ball where we wanted.”
Except going through the net.
“(Nigel Williams-Goss) is such a warrior. He blew his ankle and he still was able to get a shot. The kid’s just a flat-out winner, but we never would have gotten to this point without him. He’s about the only guy we could call on who’s really deliberate down the stretch there. We needed a defensive rebound after they missed on a shot that ended up bging a jump ball. That was a back-breaker.”
Gonzaga never had been this far before, never had made it to college basketball’s ultimate week, to the Final Four. So many doubts. So many questions. Still, the Zags couldn’t climb the full way.
“I think we’ll settle in here,” said Few about the Gonzaga program. "I’m hoping it will settle in and we’ll feel better tomorrow and in the days to come.
“It doesn’t feel that great right now for a couple of reasons. You’re on the brink of a national championship. You want to give that to your time. But at the same time, the thing that crushes you is you won’t get to coach these guys again.”
There will be other guys and other teams. Gonzaga can only wish for another result.
By Art Spander
GLENDALE, Ariz. — One game now. So near. So far. A place Mark Few never had been. A place Gonzaga never had been. All the hopes, the disappointments, the slights, the dreams, distilled to one game.
The Zags have left base camp. Finally. The summit looms. That they’ve made it this far is more than many believed possible. The Zags, the little school that couldn’t but this magnificent season of 2016-17 certainly proved it can.
They’re 37-1, the best record in college basketball. They beat physical South Carolina, losing a big lead but not their poise, winning 77-73 Saturday night at University of Phoenix Stadium. The school that never could get to the Final Four is now in the final one.
The win had Zags coach Mark Few, a minister’s son, doing handstands in the locker room. The win had Gonzaga, named for a 16th-century Jesuit priest who died caring for epidemic victims, moving into the big time and out of that silly designation, mid-major.
“They’re always on me to show emotion after a win,” said Few of his acrobatics. “So that’s my fairly weak effort of showing emotion. I got out of it with a healthy rotator cuff and healthy Achilles, so I think I’m in a good place.”
Gonzaga, in Spokane, Wash., alma mater of Bing Crosby, with its roster of recruits and transfers, with its stress on defense, with its critics who insist the Zags — well, the official nickname is Bulldogs — play a weak schedule, is at worst going to be the No. 2 team in the country and very well could end up as No. 1.
Gonzaga gave up a 14-point second-half lead in four minutes — or, more correctly, South Carolina overcame that lead with defense and shooting. And then the Zags suddenly were down by two, 67-65, with 7:06 to play. Then all the coaching and hustle and skill came forward, and Gonzaga regained control. Zach Collins, a 7-foot freshman, made the most unlikely of baskets for a 7-footer, a three-pointer. Winners find a way.
“Our late-game execution,” said Few. “That’s been a topic of speculation because we haven’t really had many close games. But we practiced it a lot. And I mean the guys executed it perfectly down the last four minutes. So I'm really proud of them for that. And just ecstatic — to be still playing the last game of the year is just crazy cool.”
Few is 54, and you don’t picture or hear him saying “crazy cool,” but he does. He’s been at Gonzaga 18 years. He’s been chased by larger schools — UCLA was interested at one time — but seems satisfied and rooted.
Basketball certainly isn’t football, a sport that Gonzaga, like most smaller schools in America, have dropped. Get yourself two or three excellent players, one of them specifically a point guard, and several other competent ones willing to play roles and listen to instructions, and you can win a title, no matter the total enrollment.
Nigel Williams-Goss spent two years on the other side of the Cascades, at the U. of Washington in Seattle. He left, then heard Few’s call. The man can shoot. He had 23 points Saturday night, high for the game. He also can orate.
“The journey we’ve been on has been unreal,” said Williams-Goss. “We just never stopped believing, and we’ve had the utmost confidence in ourselves the entire season.
“I guess they were saying we were the most nervous team in the tournament. And you know we heard everything all year, haven’t played tight games, were not tough enough ... No one’s here by accident. You have 37 wins in a college season, that’s unbelievable. We’re here to win it.”
Williams-Goss and Collins are roommates. “He told me,” Williams-Goss said of Collins, the freshman from Las Vegas, “he wouldn’t want to be playing against (himself) today. And coach says all year we just can’t talk the talk, we gotta walk the walk.”
Hard to say about walking, but Collins made that go-ahead three-pointer, had six blocks and ended up with 14 points and 13 rebounds.
“He loves being part of the team,” Few said of Collins. “We trust him at the end of the game.”
By Art Spander
Special to Newsday
SAN JOSE, Calif. — All the years. And for Gonzaga the tears. “Tears of joy,” from Mark Few after at last making it to basketball’s promised land, the Final Four.
Gonzaga, named for a saint, Aloysius Gonzaga, nicknamed the Bulldogs but known as the “Zags,” had qualified for the NCAA basketball tournament 19 previous times and never got past the regionals. Until Saturday.
Copyright © 2017 Newsday. All rights reserved.
By Art Spander
HOUSTON — Did he know? Did Kris Jenkins know when that ball left his hands, the ball that would sail through the rim and into the net with 0:00 on the clock, would win a national championship for Villanova and leave a North Carolina team in disbelief and tears?
“When you let it go ... ” asked Jim Nantz, holding a microphone. There was a pause.
“I knew it was good,” said Jenkins.
And so it was, a three-pointer that would give Villanova a 77-74 victory over the favored Tar Heels and an NCAA championship.
You want drama? This game at NRG Stadium had it. You want elation? This game had it. For Villanova. You want dejection? This game also had it — for Carolina, the school with a great basketball history, the school of Michael Jordan, who was in the stands.
What a wild, wonderful conclusion to the college basketball season of 2015–16, a season that some called mediocre because there wasn’t a dominant team, as Kentucky had been a year earlier, and because the tournament was a swarm of confusions — right until the final ticks of the clock.
Two days earlier, the semifinals had been boring, one-sided, Villanova setting a record by beating Oklahoma by 44 points and North Carolina sweeping past Syracuse by 17. See, said the basketball junkies, we told you. A bad season topped off by a bad tournament.
But just like that on Monday evening — dare we use the phrase “one shining moment"? — the whole basketball season bounced as no one foresaw, and the title turned into a memory that will be cherished by Villanova — winning its second championship — and despised by Carolina, which was unable to win its sixth.
Villanova led by three, when after a scramble and an attempt to pass, Carolina’s Marcus Paige hit an off-balance jumper to tie the game, 74-74, with 4.7 seconds to play. Surely, this was going to go on for a while.
“We play defense, the game goes into overtime and it’s ours," said Paige. "(But) it didn’t work out. Kris is one of the best three-point shooters.”
Jenkins, a junior, had four fouls and had been on the bench (he played just 21 of the 40 minutes), but he wasn’t flustered as time ran out.
“I think every shot is going in,” he said. “So that one was no different.”
Except it meant a championship for Villanova and heartbreak for North Carolina, which had trailed 67-57 with 5:29 left and then rallied. Only to lose.
“This is a difficult time period as a coach,” said Carolina’s Roy Williams, who was trying for a third title. “You fought so hard throughout the course of the season to have a chance to win a national championship.
“We couldn’t get the ball to go in the basket in the second half. We shot 34 percent. They shot 58 percent.”
One reason may be a Villanova defense that is everywhere and turns the other team’s misses into its own baskets.
Villanova coach Jay Wright was more bewildered than joyful at game’s end. He had a sour look, as if he had bit into a lemon.
“I can’t wait to see that look,” said Wright after his first championship. “Because I was just shocked. We have an end-of-the-game situation play. We put it in (Ryan) Arcidiacono’s hands. He made the perfect pass. And Kris Jenkins lives for that moment.”
That moment is one that made the season for college basketball — and for the Villanova Wildcats.
By Art Spander
Senior Analyst
HOUSTON — He probably won’t get on court for North Carolina in what will be his final college game. You could look at the career of Justin Coleman, a perennial backup guard for the Tar Heels, and say it hasn’t been very impressive. Except for one thing: It’s impressive he even had a career.
When he was in high school, playing AAU ball, May 11, 2010, Coleman was tripped and fell into a wall, incurring a broken neck. Doctors said he never would play again. But play he did.
Copyright © 2016 Bleacher Report, Inc. Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
By Art Spander
HOUSTON — It’s a team game. Sure, that’s the cliché of basketball, but it’s also the reality. Another reaffirmation came Saturday night in the Final Four.
Oklahoma had the Player of the Year, Buddy Hield. The man scores from everywhere. Or, as in the semifinal against Villanova, from nowhere. Hield did hit a three-pointer in the opening half-minute, giving everyone the impression he and the Sooners were on their way.
To oblivion, it turned out.
Villanova, shooting 77 percent in the second half, 17 of 22 from the field, and 71 percent for the game, got Oklahoma sooner and later, winning 95-51.
“I thought they popped us there in the first half, and we didn’t respond very well to that,” said OU coach Lon Kruger. “We came out with a little better fight to start the second half. Villanova withstood that, then popped us again.”
And hard. But that’s nothing new for Villanova, the school in the tony suburbs of Philadelphia’s Main Line. It was virtually a repeat performance for Nova, using the term loosely, unlike the defense Villanova plays. No looseness there.
Thirty-one years ago, 1985, in the NCAA final, the Wildcats made 17 of 28 shots, nine of 10 in the second half, and upset Georgetown.
In this final, Monday against North Carolina, which defeated Syracuse in the other semi, Nova also will be an underdog. That might mean something. Or mean zilch.
“They made shots, and we didn’t,” said Oklahoma guard Isaiah Cousins, and could a result be described more simply than that?
“Everything just fell apart, even when we got stops.”
What stopped was Oklahoma’s intensity. They’d miss — the Sooners shot a pathetic 31 percent, 19 of 60, and Hield had nine points, one of eight on threes — and then Villanova would sweep down the court. It was a classic example of what coaches have been teaching forever: defense sets up the offense.
“We were just trying to find a rhythm how to stop them,” said Hield. “I feel early in the second half we got a rhythm. After that, missed a rebound, (Josh) Hart got it up, got a three-point play, momentum went back their way. They played really well today. One of the best teams I ever played in college.
“They made it tough on me, throwing a bunch of bodies at me. Just couldn’t get it going.”
Brilliant strategy by Villanova coach Jay Wright, whose Cats are now 34-5. Brilliant execution from the “bodies,” particularly Hart, Kris Jenkins and Ryan Arcidiacono.
Hield is from the Bahamas, a senior who chose to stay four years in the hope of winning an NCAA championship. That can never be, but at least he made it to the sport’s last weekend. Now he’ll end up with on the NBA’s last-place teams, perhaps the awful 76ers. The Philly nightmare may continue, if in a different way.
“Villanova dictated everything,” said Kruger, the OU coach. “They were up into us the first half. We didn’t rip it strong and attack. We were playing laterally instead of downhill.”
Instead of going to the basket, but how can you go when there are defenders everywhere you look?
Asked if he’d ever seen a game like this, Kruger philosophized. “Oh, it’s happened, I’m sure,” he said, “but I don’t like being a part of it ... You’d like to think you can stand up and change that. We weren’t able to.”
Villanova was prepared, yet preparation doesn’t always mean success. Every time the Golden State Warriors play, the other team is prepared to stop Stephen Curry. But it’s rare when the plans work. They definitely worked for Villanova against Hield, who had averaged 29 points in the four tournament games leading to the semi.
“We were watching film on how good Buddy is,” said Arcidiacono, “We knew he would take and make tough shots. We tried to keep fresh bodies on him, tried to make him take tough, contested shots. If just happened he didn’t make them tonight.”
It just happened that Villanova, with Hart scoring 23 points, on 10 of 12, did make them.
“I’m happy,” said Wright, the Nova coach, “we had one of those games where we just make every shot. Kind of similar to our (December) game in Hawaii against Oklahoma. They made everything, we made nothing.”
There was difference, a huge difference. This one was to make the national finals.
By Art Spander
San Francisco Examiner
Dead in the water. That's what the coach said late Monday night, and the words seemed dead accurate. Duke was nine points down in the second half of its biggest game of the season, and its biggest man, 6-foot-10 Jahlil Okafor, was on bench with four fouls,
But a Mike Krzyzewski-coached team knows something about basketball because Coach K knows a great deal about the game. He knows who and how to recruit. And his players know that defense wins, which in the end it did.
© 2015 The San Francisco Examiner
By Art Spander
San Francisco Examiner
INDIANAPOLIS — We’re big on comparisons. Could Muhammad Ali have beaten Joe Louis — or Rocky Marciano? Could Tiger Woods have defeated Jack Nicklaus? And, as if subjectivity doesn’t enter into the equations, who is the greatest college men’s basketball coach of all time?
Up front, I’ll tell you: I’m a UCLA grad, and I knew John Wooden. So, yes, I’m biased. But if you insist, take Mike Krzyzewski, who tonight has Duke in another NCAA final. Or Adolph Rupp. Or Bobby Knight. Or Dean Smith. Or the man who veritably invented the game and mentored Smith, Phog Allen. Then you have an argument.
By Art Spander
Featured Columnist
INDIANAPOLIS — So the best 38-1 team in college basketball has taken its unexpected leave. What did you think would happen? That they wouldn’t hold the NCAA final Monday night at Lucas Oil Stadium?
That CBS would show re-runs of The Jackie Gleason Show instead of Duke and Wisconsin on runs down the court?
Copyright © 2015 Bleacher Report, Inc. Turner Broadcasting System, Inc.
By Art Spander
Featured Columnist
INDIANAPOLIS — The big man, Jahlil Okafor, played as we expected. He was in the middle for Duke, a freshman who's supposed to be one-and-done.
Yet, the star of the young team, another freshman we'll never see develop to his full potential as an undergrad, was Justise Winslow.
Copyright © 2015 Bleacher Report, Inc. Turner Broadcasting System, Inc.
By Art Spander
San Francisco Examiner
Second chances don't come often in sports, especially intercollegiate sports, especially in basketball, where the best players barely stay around for one year, never mind two or three. Or four.
The kids at Wisconsin understand that. The coach at Wisconsin understands that.
© 2015 The San Francisco Examiner
By Art Spander
ARLINGTON, Texas — It’s a lost art, or so we’re told. Nobody cares about free throw shooting. Flying dunks get you on instant replays. All free throws do is get you a national championship.
There’s a lesson to be learned and a skill to be practiced. University of Connecticut, UConn in the vernacular, was perfect from the foul line Monday night, 10 for 10.
That the Huskies were relentless on defense was something also to be recognized.
As UConn will be recognized for an NCAA title with a 60-54 win over Kentucky in a final game that had two former presidents of the United States, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, side by side and next to Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones.
It was at Jerry’s place, AT&T Stadium, the huge spaceship of building on the plains — the networks call the area North Texas, like Southern California or Eastern Europe — where this final game of the 2014 college basketball season drew a record crowd, 79,238.
It was at Jerry’s place where that solid defense and that perfection from the line kept Kentucky behind from start to finish. Not once in 40 minutes did the Wildcats creep into the lead.
“The way we started really cost us the game,” said John Calipari, the Kentucky coach.
The Cats hit only 5 of their first 17 field goal attempts. The Cats trailed, 30-14, with a second less than six minutes remaining in the first half.
That they cut the margin to four, 35-31, by halftime verified the Calipari contention that his players never gave up. Huzzah. They just never got ahead, either.
“Why?” asked Calipari, rhetorically. “Duh. Five freshmen in their first final. Give Connecticut credit. They were the aggressor. I told my team we had to be aggressive, sprint the ball up the court, to attack them and not let them attack you. We jogged. But again, these kids fought and tried.”
So did UConn, which had senior leadership from guard Shabazz Napier, a brilliant defender, hawking the ball, battling through screens, and an excellent shooter.
He was 8 for 16, 4 of 9 beyond the 3-point arc. He had three steals. He had three assists. He was selected outstanding player of the game.
“Napier impacted the game,” said Calipari. "He impacted every game he’s played. Terrific player. He has a swagger about him, and he deserved to have the swagger.”
UConn had some failings, missing 10 of its first 11 shots in the second half. But when Kentucky came close, 48-47 late in the second half, there was Napier, swish, with a killer 3-pointer.
“He made a play,” Calipari said. “He made that dagger."
UConn, at No. 7, is the lowest seed ever to win the championship. The Huskies had trouble overcoming St. Joseph’s, 89-81, in the first round of the tournament and during the season they lost three times to Louisville, one time by the score of 81-48. So they finished with an overall record of 32-8.
Still, they are No. 1 at the end, which counts, doesn’t it?
“I said in the beginning 18 months ago,” second-year UConn coach Kevin Ollie told CBS-TV, “when we started the process was going to be first. We was last. Now we’re first.”
Ollie, who grew up in the tough part of Los Angeles and went to Crenshaw High, doesn’t always speak the King’s English, but his thoughts are well understood. And after spending years in the NBA, a journeyman going from one team to another, he understands winning basketball.
His teams swarm on defense — the Huskies shut down No. 1 Florida in Saturday’s semifinal — and they are fundamentally sound. Ten for 10 from the line. Only 10 turnovers.
“Coach Jim Calhoun, the greatest coach ever, paved the way,” said Ollie, who was recruited by Calhoun and then before the 2012-13 season replaced him.
This was the fourth national championship for UConn, each of its last three coming in Texas — one in San Antonio, one in Houston and now one in the suburbs of Dallas.
“We ran out of time,” said Calipari.
More accurately, they ran into UConn.
By Art Spander
Featured Columnist
ARLINGTON, Texas — No one knew what DeAndre Daniels wanted. Maybe not even DeAndre Daniels. He was a 6'8" kid with a fine shooting touch and very little sense of direction.
Daniels was the highest-ranked unsigned recruit in the Class of 2011 when he chose Connecticut. After almost opting for Kentucky. After thinking about Kansas. After decommiting from Texas, once his “dream team.”
Copyright © 2014 Bleacher Report, Inc.
By Art Spander
ARLINGTON, Texas — Big D they call this area, the Metroplex, the suburbs of Dallas. Big D, as in defense, which is what Connecticut, UConn, put up against Florida.
Which had won 30 straight games. Which had been ranked the best college team in the land.
Such a lark for the Gators. A 16-4 lead, a presumed place in Monday’s final. And then Big D from UConn, D as in difference, because on this Saturday night deep in the heart of Texas, that was the difference in the first game of the two NCAA semifinals.
They were at Jerry Jones’ “Joynt,” the massive, billion-dollar domed stadium on the plains, created by the Cowboys' owner, who along with 80,000 others — the majority of whom booed Jerry when he was shown on the huge TV screen — watched how defense could take control.
It was defense that took UConn (31-8) from that early deficit to a 63-43 victory and into the championship against Kentucky, which defeated Wisconsin, 74-73.
The Gators (36-3) couldn’t get the ball inside. Couldn’t get the ball into the basket.
UConn’s guards, Ryan Boatright and Shabazz Napier, pressured and hustled, swatted and flailed. And also scored, backing DeAndre Daniels’ 20 points, Boatright with 13, Napier with 12.
But that didn’t mean as much as the way they kept Florida from scoring.
They harassed Scottie Wilbekin, the guard who runs the Gators, limiting him to four points and one assist. They forced him into three turnovers. As a team, Florida had only three assists total. And 11 turnovers.
“The difference in the game,” said Florida coach Billy Donovan, “was Scottie Wilbekin couldn’t live in the in the lane like he had all year long for us.”
He had to take up temporary residence in a less advantageous part of the court, where the mistakes were greater than the contributions.
“That’s not what we usually do,” said Wilbekin. “That’s crazy. All credit goes to them and their guards, and the way they were denying and putting pressure on us.
“We weren’t taking care of the ball. When we would get by them, we wouldn’t keep the ball tight, and they would reach from behind. We were being too loose.”
Wilbekin had averaged 15 points, three assists and only one turnover in the seven postseason games Florida played before Saturday night.
“On offense,” he said after his last game as a senior, “we couldn’t get anything going. They were being really aggressive. A couple of us were having bad shooting nights.”
UConn’s guards were the reason.
“He couldn’t get off screens,” conceded Donovan.
Exactly the way Kevin Ollie, UConn’s second-year coach, had planned it.
“We just wanted to be relentless,” he said. “Wanted to make them uncomfortable. We wanted to challenge every dribble, every pass. They wanted to attack empty elbows, if you understand what I’m saying, where they’re coming off pick-and-rolls. So we wanted to keep them on the baseline.”
At the beginning of December, when both schools were searching for the future, Florida and UConn met at Connecticut’s Gampbel Pavilion, and Napier hit one at the buzzer for a 65-64 win by the Huskies.
That was Florida’s last defeat. Until Saturday night.
“Certainly we would have loved to have played on Monday night,” said Donovan, who coached Florida to NCAA titles in 2006 and 2007, “and I told them before the game that the team that plays the best is going to play on Monday night.
“I thought UConn played better than we did.”
Did he expect that? No. Did we expect that? No way. We always figure that the favorite will end up the winner. Yet college basketball is a delightfully unpredictable sport, one with athletes leaping in celebration and pom-pom girls weeping in dismay.
The Florida cheerleaders paraded gloomily from AT&T Stadium, which is what the building has been named, only hours after arriving with a spring in their step. Their team would take another title. Except it wouldn’t.
“As the clock’s unwinding,” said Donovan of the final seconds, when defeat was unavoidable, “you’re kind of sitting there and kind of realize this is getting ready to come to an end.”
As it did, along with a 30-game unbeaten streak, a chance for the championship.
UConn stopped both. Big D in the Big D.
By Art Spander
ATLANTA – Sometimes it works out like this. Sometimes the biggest game of the season turns out to be the best game of the season, a game of emotion, drama and subplots that validates our love of sports, a game that, true to the mottos printed on the warmups of both teams, did rise to the occasion.
The preludes, the regionals, even the semifinals, were hesitant, awkward games, making us wonder what was wrong, instead of what was right, games when players couldn’t score, games that elicited criticism instead of the expected praise.
But on Monday night, the NCAA final swept away all the disappointment that had gone before, as Louisville, once trailing by 12 points, was able to sweep away Michigan, 82-76, and both take the championship and justify its overall No. 1 seeding.
It was a beautiful day for Rick Pitino, the Louisville coach, who in the late morning was chosen for the Basketball Hall of Fame and then so very late in the evening, just before the stroke of midnight because these games are staged for a maximum TV audience, watched and urged the Cardinals to their third title – and his second.
Thirteen years ago, at the only other school that counts in the state of bluegrass, thoroughbreds and college basketball, the U. of Kentucky, Pitino earned his other championship.
So Louisville, which at one time in the first half had trailed by 12, would come out ahead in the end, but the true winner was the sport, as wild and enthralling as only could be imagined by the record finals crowd of 74,326 at the Georgia Dome and the usual millions of television viewers.
“A lot of times when you get to championship games,” said Pitino, “the games are not always great, not always pretty. This was a great game.”
This was a game in which a kid nicknamed Spike, Michael Albrecht, a 5-foot-10 freshman, came off the bench for Michigan to score 17 points before intermission and then, as the media wondered if he were the stuff of fairy tales, slipped into oblivion.
This was the game in which a backup named Luke Hancock took the role of the injured Kevin Ware and not only led Louisville with 22 points but was chosen the Final Four’s most outstanding player.
This was the game in which players from both squads raced from one end of the court to the other at the sort of breakneck pace that had the screaming fans -- and oh, were they loud -- taking as many deep breaths as the athletes.
Michigan (31-8) was doing it for a while with four freshmen, and oh, are the Wolverines going to be strong in the future. Louisville (35-5) was doing it for a while figuratively without guard Russ Smith, who made only 3 of his 16 field goal attempts.
Yes, Ware was in the building, on the bench, the right leg in which he incurred a compound fracture 10 days earlier against Duke under sweat pants, his number “5” on the T-shirts of so many Louisville fans. He was given the opportunity to make the final snip, separating the net from the rim.
Louisville was not quite as ecstatic as it was relieved. The Cardinals gained control in the second half, as they did against Wichita State in the semifinal, but Michigan, shooting 52 percent for the game, wouldn’t fade until the bitter end.
“As fine an offensive team as there is,” Pitino said of Michigan.
The Wolverines with their happy ghosts from the past, Chris Webber, Jalen Rose and others from, the ’93 Michigan finalists in attendance, would get 24 points from the new Player of the Year, Trey Burke – even with Burke out most of the first half with two early fouls.
That’s when Albrecht came in and came on, making 6 of 8 and getting his 17. That’s when Michigan zoomed to a 33-21 lead with 3:56 to play before halftime. But even more quickly, in three and half minutes, Louisville did its own zooming, and went ahead, 37-36. You sensed it had become the Cardinals' game.
“We feel bad about it,” Michigan coach John Beilein would say in retrospect. “We could have done some things better, every one of us. At the same time, Louisville is a terrific basketball team. I have not seen that quickness anywhere, and we played some really good teams. That quickness is incredible, and it got us a couple of times today.”
It got Louisville the victory, as one of Pitino’s horses, Goldencents, on Saturday got him the Santa Anita Derby victory.
“I think when you work as hard as we work,” said Pitino of his team, “it builds a foundation of love and discipline because you have to suffer together. You're always pressing.”
He meant for greatness. In this game, this great game, Louisville achieved it.