Wisconsin basketball coach Dick Bennett calls it “touching a dream,” being included among the Final Four college basketball teams in the land, surely the first time Indianapolis has ever been anyone’s fantasy.
“The ultimate of the ultimate,” said Bennett, bringing to mind the musing of Duane Thomas about the Super Bowl: Then why are they holding it next year?
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Well, 59 years between gigs for Wisconsin makes up nearly half of Florida coach Billy Donovan’s life, so one man’s ultimate is another man’s antique.
As pleasant and delightful–two adjectives nearly never used in describing a basketball coach–as is Bennett, I must disagree with the man. This is hardly anyone’s dream Final Four, more a hallucination, really.
Wisconsin, Michigan State, North Carolina, Florida. Reads like the list of candidates for the Citrus Bowl. If you put Ron Dayne behind Wisconsin’s front line, I’ll take the Badgers and give the points.
Michigan State, sure. I’ll give you Michigan State and if I didn’t, Mateen Cleaves would just take it anyway. The Spartans are the class of the lot, the only No. 1 seed to do the predictable, to resist the Madness of March. (This is a copyrightable phrase and is not to be used on T-shirts, beer cups or etched into anyone’s hair without written permission of the NCAA.)
Coming with the success of Michigan State is the weight of expectation, a burden that as seasoned a bunch as Duke could not handle last year.
This Final Four sets up to authenticate Michigan State. It should be more coronation than adventure, really, a reward for the remarkable kids from Flint–Cleaves and Mo Peterson and Charlie Bell. Anything less than a national title will echo as failure. It is not only Michigan State’s to lose, it is Michigan State’s to validate.
Some things you know and the thing you know about college basketball is if Duke isn’t there at the end, the ending is suspicious. If there’s not a Duke, there has to be a Kentucky. If not a Kentucky, an Arizona. I did not make the rules.
There is a North Carolina, usually good enough. In most years–20, by actual count–North Carolina has the pedigree to go unchallenged in any Final Four field. In Chapel Hill, Wisconsin’s dreams are annually assumed. But this is the year that not even its own alumni rooted for North Carolina to win.
This was the year that North Carolina was going to be so awful that Dean Smith’s successor, Bill Guthridge, would resign in shame and Kansas coach Roy Williams would come home to the rescue.
In the subregional in Winston-Salem, the biggest story of the week was neither Duke nor Florida, but Williams’ wife shopping for furniture, positive proof that the moving van was on the way from Lawrence. Poor North Carolina, now stuck with a pleasant and delightful coach. Whew. Twice in one column.
What you know is that if the Final Four does not confirm the season, you’ve wasted a lot of time paying attention to all those conference tournaments, following the rising dementia and expanding waistline of Bob Knight, never mind putting both Gonzaga and Albuquerque into your spell-check library.
No Arizona, no Stanford, no Cincinnati. What were all those weeks of sorting out who is No. 1 if No. 1 could end up being one of two teams not even ranked in the Top 25?
And wouldn’t that be a “dream” final between the Badgers and the Tar Heels, teams that each lost 13 games, more than any Final Four teams ever, two No. 8 seeds, a basketball designation roughly equivalent to beer nuts?
Where are the star players? Cincinnati’s Kenyon Martin, the best player in the country, is still in a leg cast. Marcus Fizer, Iowa State, gone. A.J. Guyton, Indiana, Chris Mihm, Texas, Troy Murphy, Notre Dame, nowhere to be seen.
Cleaves and Peterson are the only names of any resonance and Mike Miller of Florida. Remember Florida, winner over Illinois, miracle buzzer-beating survivor of Butler? Miller made that shot, still the most moving moment in the tournament. Talk about touching the dream.
On the day that Bennett and Wisconsin learned that their dream had been touched, someone wondered how excited the folks back home would be and how long the party would last.
“To be honest,” said Bennett, “I have a suspicion they would party whether we played another game or not.”
Ah, perspective. What any Final Four needs. In that spirit, I’ll take Michigan State over Florida.