Nothing Has More Magic Than NCAAs

By: Drew Sharp/Knight Ridder Newspapers
Posted In: Sports

Did you see the finish of that game?

Did you catch that clutch shot in the closing seconds? In the words of Bill Raftery, the young man displayed “big onions.”

Did you catch his name, by any chance?

It doesn’t matter, but he played for Xavier, right? No, it was Nevada. Or maybe Pacific. It could have been Alabama. Come to think of it, it might have been Alabama-Birmingham.

Who knows? And, quite honestly, who cares?

College basketball has become quite the contradiction. The steadily diminishing talent level is killing the game, but it’s making the NCAA tournament a bigger, more enticing event than ever before. The drama of the first four days of the tournament makes the agonizing boredom of the four months of the regular season a little more palatable.

Instead of complaining about the nearly dozen high school stars expected to enter the NBA draft this summer, we should push them out the door, even though about half of them will end up on long bus rides through the Dakota plains.

This is what they will be missing, and we get to watch: Big-name teams sweating in the first two rounds, reaffirming why the opening salvos of the NCAA tournament are the most compelling stretch in the sports calendar. The only thing that could come remotely close would be four successive days of seventh games in the Stanley Cup playoffs.

The regular season has become basically irrelevant in college basketball. The days of fairy tales and glass slippers have been replaced by a stronger appreciation for increasing national parity. But the tournament is more about nameless players in the uniform of faceless entities, stepping up huge when the main prize is the chance to stretch themselves beyond apparent limits.

This is likely their only opportunity at stardom. And there’s still something magical about that.

There remains a purity about watching a youthful behemoth like Vanderbilt forward Matt Freije break into sobs, hardly believing that his team had recovered from an 11-point deficit with less than four minutes left against third-seeded North Carolina State.

The victory earned the Commodores their first Sweet 16 appearance in 11 years.

Six teams lost despite leading by double digits with less than 15 minutes remaining. And eight winners seemingly had comfortable leads, only to find themselves seriously threatened in the closing moments.

The average margin of victory through the first two rounds (10.2 points) continues a gradual shrinkage in the last four years.

The higher seeds are still winning more than 90 percent of the games, but they no longer are almost-certain blowouts.

“I think the nation is finally starting to get the message that for 40 minutes at a time the vast majority of the 65 teams can match up pretty well against each other,” Nevada coach Trent Johnson said. “I don’t believe the smaller schools are intimidated by the name on the front of the jersey.”

Johnson’s 10th-seeded Wolf Pack stunned Michigan State in the first round and second-seeded Gonzaga in the second round. Gonzaga was ranked third nationally in the final polls. There’s no need to manufacture intriguing subplots.

CBS seems determined to force another Billy Packer-Phil Martelli confrontation. Packer openly – and accurately – questioned the legitimacy of a No. 1 regional seed for St. Joseph’s, which is coached by Martelli.

St. Joseph’s got the top seed despite a schedule of questionable strength and a one-sided loss in its conference tournament opener.

Martelli then called Packer a “jackass” during a student rally and has since refused any CBS requests for an interview with Packer.

So the network will have Packer working Thursday’s regional semifinal between St. Joe’s and fourth-seeded Wake Forest in the East Rutherford Regional. Oh, and it just so happens that Wake Forest is Packer’s alma mater.

It didn’t take long for Martelli to face questions about the unending Packer sidebar during his Monday press briefing.

“I was wondering how long it would take before we got into that,” said Martelli, laughing.

He refused to throw any more garbage onto this trash heap, applauding the network for staffing the regional with its A-team of Packer and play-by-play man Jim Nantz.

“We’re both professionals,” Martelli said. “I plan on giving Packer all the information he needs. It must be one hell of a regional if Packer and Nantz are broadcasting there.”

So let the high school stars bypass the Dukes and Kentuckys for their professional fantasies. The tournament doesn’t miss them, and sadly for them, they don’t know what they’re missing.