Finally, Four.
This college basketball elimination has already lasted longer than most Middle East wars, the Iditarod and the entire career of Billy Ray Cyrus.
North Carolina. Kentucky. Utah. Stanford. Two habits and two novelties. Chalk and chance. Not a bad final mix. No apologies necessary. This will do.
And yet no real surprises. All four schools were Top 10 finishers. All have won at least 30 games. None are flukes. Valparaiso would have been a fluke. Rhode Island. West Virginia.
Flukes can be sweet, as in 16, or maybe even elite, as in eight. But hardly ever final. Not one of the four.
Everything up to now has been delicious delusion. From here on, it is all about pedigree. Best-in-show is not allowed fleas.
Too bad Sunday’s Duke-Kentucky game could not have been saved for San Antonio, but at least the world is spared another Duke-North Carolina rematch. If it ain’t Ali-Frazier, three is enough.
North Carolina and Kentucky consider this their birthright. One or the other has been in five of the last seven Final Fours, and each was there just last year, each losing in turn to Arizona.
North Carolina lost legendary coach Dean Smith, now mumbling his way through halftime reports, and did not miss a step. Kentucky lost legendary coach Rick Pitino, now stumbling his way with the Boston Celtics, and did not miss a step.
Their replacements–Bill Guthridge at North Carolina, Coach Gut to his friends–and Tubby Smith at Kentucky, not Tubby at all–did what was expected, not always an easy job, and yet not that hard when you have, in the words of beaten coach Jim Calhoun of Connecticut, “six pro players.”
North Carolina does have the player of the year in Antawn Jamison for certain.
Stanford’s last Final Four visit was in 1942, Utah’s in 1966. Or to put it another way, John Wooden had won only two titles the last time either team made the Big Dance.
In fact, it wasn’t even a dance then. It was a handshake and a promise of lunch.
“They say a ticket to the Final Four is worth a lot of money,” Utah coach Rick Majerus was saying. “I say it is priceless.”
This is not to say this Final Four has no Cinderella. You have to have a Cinderella, and this one has two. Twins, actually. Not pretty twins, but identical. Big and clunky with 18-inch necks.
Utah or Stanford. Ugly stepsisters, more like it. Switch uniforms, and relatives or pets couldn’t tell them apart.
Star of the Stanford team goes by the nickname of Mad Dog. A Mad Dog at Stanford? This is like finding a farm animal in the library.
Mark Madsen, who made the basket that beat Rhode Island Sunday, was once compared to Dennis Rodman.
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“Maybe our habits off the court are similar,” Madsen said, probably kidding. No, the comparison was on the court.
Stanford has been accused of using too much muscle and too many elbows, an expression of coach Mike Montgomery.
“He’s from Montana, where you go to a bar to get a beer and beating. He’s brought that to the basketball floor,” said Rhode Island coach Jim Harrick.
“We don’t put ’em in a padded room and only the starters emerge,” responded Montgomery. “We don’t get upset when people have quicker players than us.”
Utah is no kinder, no gentler and has the same reputation of being undertalented and overmatched, and coached by the most unlikely, unathletic-looking fellow in the sport. Majerus is the literal Coach Gut, the real Coach Tubby. It would be hard to find a single sharp edge on him.
“This is for all the people in Utah, fourth- and fifth-generation people who follow us,” Majerus said after his team had finished razing Arizona.
“This is for those 60-year-old guys who come to every practice. And this is for Nick the Greek who runs the burger place I eat in. Now I have to go to the bathroom and figure out a place to have dinner.”
A man with his priorities in order, but, still, I take North Carolina over Kentucky in the final.