“March Madness” arrives after a stretch in which the No. I ranking in the polls changed uniforms seven consecutive weeks; after a mid-February week when the top 25 teams lost 18 games; after the game’s most volcanic coach, Indiana’s Bob Knight, not only kicked one of his own players, who happened to be his son (big surprise?), but later sat idly by as Minnesota kicked his team by 50 points (bigger surprise).
When the regular season ended, six teams had been No. I in the polls-North Carolina, Kentucky, Kansas, UCLA, Duke and Arkansas. Yet two other teams were ranked I and 2 in the power ratings: Arizona and Purdue. “Figure it out,” LSU coach Dale Brown said last week. “Athletics mirror society; there’s no stability in society anymore. " That was 22 hours before the sincerely stable Brown was thrown out of a losing game against Georgia in the Southeastern Conference tournament for arguing a referee’s call. “Forgive me for being a wimp … momentarily,” Brown said afterward. Then he broke down and wept.
Such is life on campus hardwood. Beginning this week 64 teams will battle at eight sites, all pointed toward the Final Four on April 2 to 4 in Charlotte, N.C. Brown’s team will not be one of them even though LSU came within a hog’s breath of upsetting powerful Arkansas twice. The Razorbacks also barely survived the worst team in their league, Tennessee, on Jan. 29, 65-64. But they are averaging 95 points and 22 forced turnovers per game, playing coach Nolan Richardson’s self-professed “40 minutes of hell” style and were ranked No. 1 in nine different weeks.
“The No. 1 thing is like ice cream,” says Richardson, who’s finishing his seventh season with 21 or more victories. “The first time you get it, great. The next time it tastes OK, but so what? Look. I’d rather be No. I than anything. But in this NCAA deal it doesn’t mean nothin’. Anybody can beat you.”
Widespread parity in college ball is the result of a confluence of changes in the rules and the pool of player. “With so many summer leagues, by the time the kids get to us they’ve had seven to eight years of big-time experience and they’re ready,” says Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski. “There are so many players now; if we don’t get a great 6-foot-6 guy this year, we’ll get him next,” says North Carolina coach Dean Smith. And then the players leave. Early. Had Chris Webber, Jamal Mashburn, Anfernee Hardaway and Shawn Bradley finished their college eligibility instead of opting for the NBA, Michigan, Kentucky, Memphis State and Brigham Young respectively might have, one or all, dominated the season.
The biggest rule change has been the three-point shot. Now in its seventh year, this 19-footer is not just a desperation heave; threes account for a quarter of all shots taken. Arkansas “drop-kicks ’em in,” says Richardson, whose team averages nine three-pointers a game. “They [the opponent] never know where their hurtin’s comin’ from.”
On Saturday the hurtin’ came from another direction as the Hogs succumbed to Kentucky 90-78, after the winners drilled an outrageous 16 three-point shots. On the same day five of the next top six teams in the coaches’ poll lost-Connecticut, Missouri, Duke, Arizona and Michigan-with only North Carolina surviving in overtime against Wake Forest. The chaos continued.
In last year’s NCAA tournament round of 16, Smith’s Tar Heels survived a flurry of threes from Richardson’s Razorbacks and won on an old-fashioned backdoor layup in the last minute. Chalk says the two should play again, this time for all the, uh, ice cream. But as the Top Hog says: “All that went before is just the report card. Now comes the final exam.” Or as they say in the Madness of March, dunk that metaphor.
