After all, the one-on-one game proposed by West Virginia coach Gale Catlett against Utah coach Rick Majerus might have been a better ticket than their two teams in the West Regional semis, an ungracious old grouch against an inflatable pool toy.
“If there were no referees,” Utah senior Drew Hansen said, “I think I’d take coach Majerus.”
Maryland coach Gary Williams made no such challenge to Arizona’s Lute Olson, but if he had, Olson would have seen not the whimsy of it but just more evidence of the great Eastern conspiracy against Western basketball.
Well, the East was excused from the West Thursday night, leaving the geography to those who have claimed it all year, Utah and Arizona, a triumph for Rand McNally, the NCAA seeding committee and Olson’s soap box.
“I’m not saying that good basketball isn’t played in the East,” Olson said. “I’m just saying that we play good basketball out here too. I think it’s time the people get the covered wagons over the Rockies and check it out.”
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College basketball games are settled, never more obviously than Utah and West Virginia, not by seasoned adults but by nervous young men, so that Utah could win without hitting a field goal for the last nine minutes of the second half, providing the text book opposite of a buzzer-beater.
This was a buzzer postponer.
“Not an artistic game,” Majerus confirmed.
Utah won at the free-throw line because West Virginia didn’t know when to give a foul or when to make one, and West Virginia lost when Jerrod West, owner of the most celebrated name in Mountaineer basketball, the same West who had hit the dramatic winning shot against Cincinnati, missed his last three shots, including the final three-pointer that would have tied the game.
“That’s not the shot we wanted,” Catlett said, “but it was the one we had to take.”
West sobbed into his coach’s shirt.
“He doesn’t understand why we lost,” Catlett said. “He’s at that age when he thinks he can whip the world.”
Utah center Michael Doleac met the pressure and calmly sank six free throws down the stretch, the last two with six seconds to play.
“I had to get the fans out of my head, the situation out of my head,” Doleac said, “and the way I do that is just imagine I am all alone in the gym, shooting the ball, making 100 free throws in a row.”
On this night, 13 of 14 would be enough.
Arizona allowed Maryland to believe it deserved to share the floor, and Maryland closed to a point midway through the second half only to lose by eight. Was Arizona worried?
“Why should we be?” Olson asked. “This is not a worrying team.”
Hence, there is no reason to expect Arizona to be overly concerned with Utah, time zone neighbor or not.
A bunch of guys named Hansen or Johnsen or Jensen, not to mention a player from Finland–Hanno Mottoloa–the only player in memory to have three umlauts on his jersey–may never be taken seriously.
Utah will have to beat the defending national champion, a team with two All-Americas in Mike Bibby and Miles Simon and not an umlaut anywhere in sight.
“By the time we play Saturday,” Majerus said, “there will be 312 teams sitting at home wishing they were where we are.
“I know this was an ugly win. No doubt about it. I don’t know if we have enough time before Saturday to correct all the maladies we have. If we rebound fairly well, if we take care of the ball, if we play without apprehension, we’re in pretty good shape. We’re anxious to play another game.
“I know the specter of the dunk-a-rama looms over us big time. All I hope is that we still have a few more cards to play.”