At Last, One Great Game

Mark Starr — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 13:32:20 GMT

When you don't, as I didn't, have a horse in the race, the game itself--good or bad--becomes the only concern. And last night's NCAA basketball final was everything a fan could have hoped for. Kudos to both Kansas and Memphis for a spirited, stylish sprint of a game, good enough to virtually erase the memory of what had been a disappointing, often sluggish tournament.

But I give every bit as much credit to the referees, who managed one of the toughest tricks in officiating: to sit on their whistles and let the kids play without ever letting the physical play get out of hand. There were only 35 fouls whistled, a number of those deliberate fouls by Kansas in the end game, and 34 free throws taken in a game with an extra period. Thus the refs, as much as the players, contributed to the breakneck pace of the play.

I had been thinking about end-game situations since the previous evening's women's semi-finals, when, with 7.1 seconds remaining, Tennessee raced the length of the court to score the game-winner and squeak by LSU 47-46. (Tennessee will play Stanford for the title tonight). There was no surprise in their last-second approach. Tennessee got the ball in the hands of its superstar Candace Parker who raced the length of the court with only the meagrest harassment. Only when Parker reached the baseline did every LSU player jump out at her, leaving a Tennessee player all alone under the basket. Parker found her with a perfect pass and, even after she blew the layup, another Volunteer was there to rebound and put the ball up and in with less than a second left in the game.

It was hardly an unfamiliar ending in tournament basketball--with prominent memories of Danny Ainge and Tyus Edney racing end-to-end in the final seconds and scoring winning buckets for Brigham Young and UCLA respectively. I always wonder in such games how, particularly when a team has struggled to score all night long as Tennessee had, can they possibly get two unmolested layups in the final seconds. And this was after LSU coach Van Chancellor had a timeout to set up his defense. It seemed obvious to me that Parker should have been double-teamed in the backcourt and forced to give up the ball, requiring her less skilled teammates to execute perfectly in the final seconds. The result might have been the same, but it would have certainly come harder.

So I was already obsessing about end-games when we had another classic situation in the men's final. (A pause here to note my one and only prescient comment before the tournament: that Memphis didn't shoot free throws well enough to win this tournament.) A team, in this case Kansas, needs a three-pointer to tie in the final seconds and send the game into overtime. I've come to believe that, at least in the college ranks (and maybe even in the pros), the trailing team should never get to take that shot unmolested. The defenders should be out on the three-point line ready to foul--even if that means allowing a player to get to the line for three free throws and a chance to tie the game. I am convinced that most college players have a far better chance of hitting the three-pointer in rhythm than they do of making three consecutive free throws with the game on the line.

The Ivies Muscle Up

Editors — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 20:12:14 GMT

Charles Euchner files a nice take on what new scholarship rules could mean for Harvard's NCAA tourney chances:

Harvard, Yale and Princeton perennially finish among the top five in rankings of universities for their academic offerings and research. Could they, one day, also compete for the Final Four of the NCAA basketball tournament?

Ivy League colleges have not been serious competitors in major sports since the signing of the Ivy Group Agreement in 1945, which banned the use of athletic scholarships. Harvard and Yale dominated college football in the late 19th and early 20th century but de-emphasized sports in the aftermath of a series of controversies over gridiron violence. (Harvard's invention of the "flying wedge," in which a mob of defensive players targets a single opposing player, led to the creation of the National Collegiate Athletic Association.)

But now two Harvard initiatives—a dramatic restructuring of tuition assistance and aggressive recruitment of the nation's best high-school basketball players—could spur Harvard and other Ivy League schools to produce basketball teams worthy of March Madness. Basketball is likely to see the greatest change from these new rules, since one good player can significantly improve the fortunes of the team; see, for instance, the career of Bill Bradley, who led Princeton to the Final Four in 1965. Because of the volume of elite athletes needed, the initiatives are less likely to impact sports such as football or baseball.

READ THE FULL STORY HERE

March Through Madness: An NCAA Tourney Blog : The Women

At Last, One Great Game

The Ivies Muscle Up