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1997-98

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Kentucky's come-from-behind victory - 1998
By Paul Attner
The Sporting News

Kentucky's come-from-behind victory over Utah in the championship game is a fitting end to a thrilling tournament of upsets, overtimes and buzzer-beaters

If you are weary, as you should be, of the predictable, spoiled-brat world that passes these days for pro basketball, then here's a better choice. College basketball has just concluded a three-week internal audit, and the results are spectacular. Let college superstars jump prematurely to the pros, where they can become part of the whining and showboating and unimaginative thinking that undermines the NBA game. They'll leave behind a sport that has grown a lot more intriguing and better balanced than anything the pros can produce.

Only the most biased pro fan could walk away from this NCAA Tournament without really getting it. Climaxed by a scintillating championship game in which Kentucky rallied in the second half against Utah to win its second title in three seasons, the college players gave us a weekly dose of entrancing court magic, where real defense matters and teamwork isn't passe and you no longer really can identify which team is best until the tournament ends. It is a world that doesn't depend almost exclusively on dunks and highlight plays and strutting, but instead draws its lifeblood from the likes of hustle, role players and coaching adjustments -- and a huge dose of the unknown.

At a time when the NBA wonders what life after Michael Jordan will bring, especially now that a player can choke a coach and not be universally condemned by his peers, the college game can boast of a future that annually will produce enduring stories like Valparaiso and more Final Fours filled with unexpected but admirable participants like Stanford and Utah.

There always has been a pure joy in the college game that separated it from the jaded attitude of the pros. But a new level of satisfaction has infiltrated college basketball. When Kentucky celebrated its 78-69 victory Monday night, the smiles came from players who never realistically envisioned this climactic triumph in 1998. After all, their coach, Rick Pitino, had left for, of course, the pros, and the NBA also stripped the club of its remaining elite players. Yet a team of complementary athletes bonded with new coach Tubby Smith to forge what emerged as the nation's best squad. In the process, they gave us the kind of intensity and spirit the pro game sorely lacks.

The quality of college play might have slipped a bit as more superior players leave prematurely, but the resulting parity has produced a more exciting and dramatic game -- more exciting and dramatic over a sustained basis than anything the NBA can match. The superstar programs like Kentucky, Duke and North Carolina probably always will remain competitive, but their domination now will not be nearly as overwhelming nor as intimidating. With scholarship limitations having reduced stockpiling by the big-time schools and the NBA having siphoned off the dominant performers, the bottom schools are growing stronger and the upper echelon weaker.

The resulting squeeze has become a bonanza for the sport. "Find me some schools that can't compete," Kentucky's Smith says. "I know people still think this tournament has upsets, but I'm not so sure anymore. If every school got as much exposure during the season as the better-known programs, it would be easier to understand how many good teams there are out there."

What we have in college basketball today is equal opportunity. Because the best programs rarely have the luxury anymore of keeping their blue-chip players around for four years, a lot of schools have seen their chances of making a run for the national title enhanced dramatically. It stands to reason. If I can recruit six or seven good players and keep them together for four years and develop cohesiveness and skills within a viable system, my team now has a good opportunity to compete with a school that keeps losing its best recruits and never maintains any continuity. North Carolina coach Bill Guthridge estimates that 40-50 colleges annually have a realistic shot at the national championship. He may be low by 25 percent.

As a result, we need to look at this tournament in a different light. Seeds are needed to make sense of the bracket, but don't read too much into those rankings anymore. Last year, Arizona wasn't considered a title contender but won it anyway by beating three No. 1 seeds after being a No. 4 seed in the Southeast. This year, when Arizona romped around the top of the rankings, it couldn't even make it to the Elite Eight. Instead, Utah, a three seed, defeated the defending champs and then North Carolina, a No. 1 seed, to advance to the final game.

Being a favorite in this tournament now has become a prescription for failure. Just look at the results from this event to see how tightly bunched things have become: 17 games decided by a 3-point basket or less, seven by one point, six overtime contests, three No. 1 seeds defeated before the Final Four, only one first-team TSN All-American (Antawn Jamison) left among the last four schools.

The weekend in San Antonio only added to the enjoyment the game is producing. In the national semifinal round, Kentucky needed overtime to beat Stanford, which played well enough to deserve the victory, and Utah held off a tournament favorite in North Carolina, which late in the second half had cut a 15-point lead to one. The combined seven-point victory margin was the closest of any semifinal round in the 1990s. Then, in the championship contest, Utah carried a 10-point lead into halftime on the strength of an astonishing 24-6 rebounding margin. But Kentucky, a team built on spurts and speed, tightened its second-half defense, limiting the Utes to a miserable 29 percent while outrebounding the Utes, 18-15. Utah finally was subdued in the last 31Ú2 minutes, when the Wildcats made 9-of-10 free throws. Their halftime deficit was the largest to ever be overcome in championship game history.

This was Kentucky's third straight appearance in the title game, and certainly the most surprising of that streak. Smith, who coached 24 years on the college and high school level before getting the Wildcats' job, did a masterful job of adjusting Pitino's defensive philosophies and turning the team into the school's best defensive outfit in 36 years. This was Smith's stamp on this club, which also responded to a kinder, gentler touch after years of Pitino's browbeating. Kentucky finished by winning 13 straight games, stripping opponents of their spirit with characteristic spurts. The Wildcats threw second-half bursts of 8-2, 10-0 and 7-0 to fashion their comeback against an exhausted Utes team, which saw center Michael Doleac limited to three points in the last 20 minutes by a sagging defense.

"This is more than a basketball program, this is a way of life (in Kentucky)," says Smith, who won the school's seventh title, which have come under four coaches. "I'm just happy to be a small part of it."

This tournament also solidified that this no longer is a game where superstar coaches dominate as they once did, and that, too, is welcomed news. Too frequently in the past, college coaches have been the focal point of attention, overshadowing the people who play the game. Again, look at this Final Four. Every coach was making his first appearance, and none possessed the charisma, aura or spotlight-hogging presence of a Pitino or Dean Smith or Bob Knight. These were solid men who had spent years wondering if they could ever challenge for the NCAA title. Certainly, the fact that Stanford's Mike Montgomery and Utah's Rick Majerus got this far directing two relatively unglamorous programs is an inspiration to all their peers who also labor in the shadow of the supposed elite institutions. The television cameras had reason to move their focus from the sideline to the players on the court, where the emphasis always has belonged.

Unlike the NBA, where the two-man game and ball-rotation defense produce a predictability that strips the sport of spontaneity and imagination, college basketball is alive with creativity and adrenaline. Coaches actually coach, and their knowledge and ability to prepare their players can make a difference. In this tournament, we were treated to an array of crackling zones, various press alignments and multiple offensive schemes. Who will ever forget Valparaiso's Pacer or Utah's triangle-and-two? When was the last time anyone gathered around the office water cooler talked about last night's strategic NBA innovation? In the pros, progress is measured by how well Pat Riley plots more ways to mug opponents.

"I think the college game is in better shape than the professional game, and I am a big fan of both," says Majerus, the rotund, Everyman coach with the Billy Crystal one-liners. "Because we are not predicated on stars. You have guys coming out early who aren't ready for the NBA. Tracy McGrady, those guys make a deal with the devil coming out early. Yes, you will get a lot of money in your life. But then after money, what else do you have? You don't have friends, you don't develop a sense of self, you compromise a lot of your self-esteem. You see yourself as a basketball player only and not something beyond that. I think the pros are doing everything they can to get the kids to stay in school.

"(The title game) is the most meaningful game in the world to many fans. You split it down the middle, and it would be either the NBA championship or this game. And I will tell you what, I bet for the populace at large, it would be this game, especially with the feelings about the NBA today."
Majerus proudly poses as a poster boy for what makes his game better than the pro version. His message to his fellow "lifer" coaching peers was clear: Take hope from what I have accomplished. This is his 28th year as a college coach, including stops as head coach at Marquette and Ball State. He was Al McGuire's assistant when Marquette won the NCAA title in 1977, but he had conceded that Utah never could win a national championship, given its location and limited attraction for black players. But the changing fabric of college basketball has opened the title door wide open for all the Majeruses. It is no coincidence that Utah, which last won a national championship in 1944, and Stanford, which last was a champion in 1942 and hasn't gotten this far since, appeared in this Final Four. The presence of these long-pretending schools this late in the tournament will become a rule, not an exception, in future playoffs.


In his own way, Jamison confirmed the new status of the college game when, at the conclusion of North Carolina's loss to Utah, he fell down and kissed the Alamodome playing floor. In what might have been his last college appearance -- he is expected to pass up his senior season and jump to the NBA -- Jamison was saying goodbye to what he describes as the happiest time of his life. He may be richer next season, but he won't have nearly as much fun on the next level.
UCLA coach Steve Lavin, who benefits from recruiting for a big-name school, understands the changing landscape of college basketball. "There are so many really good players around who may not be the very best blue-chippers but who can develop into important producers," Lavin says. "You recruit enough of these players, and you can turn into a major challenger."

It's fitting that three of the four teams in San Antonio fit this college-success formula. Stanford, Utah and to a great extent Kentucky relied on a balanced approach featuring mostly complementary players, persistent defense and pesky rebounding. None had a heralded dominant star, but players such as Arthur Lee of Stanford and Andre Miller of Utah emerged in the tournament to provide the pressure points their schools needed to win. In the past two seasons, Kentucky saw a go-to guy move early to the pros -- Antoine Walker in 1996 and Ron Mercer in 1997 -- but still got to this Final Four with no starter averaging more than 13 points, the first time in 50 years a Kentucky player has failed to hit the
14-point barrier. Instead of one leading actor, the team relied on depth and different players on different nights to carry them.
The Wildcats' Jeff Sheppard, who sat out last season as a redshirt to avoid playing behind two first-round picks, was selected Most Outstanding Player of the Final Four, mostly on the basis of a career-high 27 points against Stanford. But in the final against Utah, four Kentucky players were in double-figures. And a reserve, Heshimu Evans, provided a desperately needed early second-half spark with eight straight points. The Wildcats wound up scoring more points and shooting a higher percentage than any Utah opponent this season. Since 1964, only two teams have won this championship without a future top-10 NBA pick, Arkansas in 1994 and Indiana in 1987. Kentucky will become the third. And the list certainly will grow steadily in years to come, until this ability to win without a superstar becomes a trend.

"It doesn't get any better than this; it is an awesome feeling," says Sheppard about the championship victory. He just as well could have been talking about this tournament -- and the state of college basketball.