It hasn’t been hard to make the case over the past decade that college basketball is dying a slow death. One-and-dones, bad offense, too many fouls and timeouts, over-coaching, excessive conference realignment, scandal. The list is long and well-known.
But then we get a weekend like we just had and remember that, hey, yeah, this college basketball can be pretty outstanding after all. Let’s take a look at eight things that stood out from a very memorable Elite Eight.
John Calipari
The Kentucky coach appeared equal parts disheveled, confused and terrified throughout much of the second half Saturday night as his undefeated, talent-laden squad – which had won its first three Tournament games by an average of 25 points – struggled to get past Notre Dame, an 11.5-point underdog. The Irish dictated the flow and style of the game and the Kentucky mastermind seemed completely caught off guard and powerless to change it. Calipari recruits with every utterance from his lips, but the recruiting pitch he looked to be making to top recruits against the Irish wasn’t: “Come to Kentucky and play with the best.” It was: “Come to Kentucky and help this sweaty, befuddled man escape public humiliation. Please. Take mercy on him.”
Yet when time expired, Calipari did win – or, his Wildcats won for him, despite him – and moved within two games of an irreproachable 40-0. If the still likely outcome occurs next Monday night in Indianapolis and the Wildcats cut down the nets, Kentucky haters will have to accept the consolation prize of Calipari’s appearance against the Irish. Kentucky might win it all, yet the country still got to see how Calipari would look if it all crashed down around him.
Mike Krzyzewski
The Duke mindset that so many despise is essentially: “We’re wildly successful and you pathetic peons hate us because you are jealous.” Or, as paragon of Duke hatred Christian Laettner so elegantly puts it on his Twitter page: “#HATERSGONNAHATE”. (That’s right. Laettner is a 45 year-old father of three with a degree from one of the finest private universities in all the land and has an ALL CAPS hashtag about “haters” on his Twitter page.) Unfortunately for the Duke detractors amongst us, it is becoming increasingly difficult to criticize Krzyzewski without sounding like anything other than – to use the parlance of wealthy white guys in their mid-40s – a HATER.
Krzyzewski is now in his 12th career Final Four, tying him with John Wooden for the most all-time. He’s done it in an era with far more parity than when UCLA dominated the 60s and 70s. Wooden also benefitted from a much smaller Tournament field, between 22 and 32 teams during his heyday, while Coach K has to survive a field of 68. If Krzyzewski isn’t already the greatest college basketball coach of all-time, regardless of what happens in Indianapolis, he’s at least in the top two or three. And if that fact unsettles you, imagine the world a week from now if Krzyzewski is able to beat a 39-0 Kentucky team in the national title game. We’ll all be choking in a dense smog of smug.
Tom Izzo
If Calipari and Krzyzewski are the hated villains, Izzo is the nice guy everyone wants to see the pretty girl marry in the end. If you haven’t been doing this already, when filling out you NCAA Tournament bracket in the future, always start by putting Michigan State in the Final Four and then work backwards from there. With their overtime victory over Louisville on Sunday afternoon, Izzo’s Spartans have now reached seven Final Fours in the past 17 years. Even Krzyzewski has only been to five in that time.
Izzo has done all this while managing to avoid the televangelist/corporate spokesman/organized crime boss vibe so many other successful, big-time college basketball coaches exude. Consider: Izzo has seven Final Four appearances but zero self-help books. Calipari has four. Same with Krzyzewski. Rick Pitino – Rick Pitino! – has four, too, including his latest: The One-Day Contract: How to Add Value to Every Minute of Your Life. Yes, a man who is notorious for a 15-second “encounter” had the hubris (lack of self-awareness?) to publish a book in 2013 telling all of us how to get more done in a minute. Amazing. Maybe Pitino should use some of his extra minutes to draw up better plays on offense. Whatever he had the Cardinals running after halftime – Louisville made just six of their final 32 attempts from the field – definitely wasn’t working.
Izzo will now face Krzyzewski in the national semi-final. He is 1-8 all-time versus Coach K – another stat that lends credence to that annoying Krzyzewski-truly-is-a-great-coach reality – and, despite his seven Final Four trips, he has just one national title. Good thing college basketball coaches aren’t evaluated like NFL quarterbacks, or Izzo would be basketball’s Peyton Manning.
Wisconsin
Bo Ryan’s Badgers are boring. They’re slow. They have no imagination on offense. A Wisconsin national title would be bad for college basketball. That’s what we heard all year. (And, really, what we hear every year.) Then the Badgers scored more points than any other team in the Elite Eight, outpacing the up-tempo and supposedly more athletic Arizona Wildcats, 85-78 – and it capped with an explosive 55-point second half. The supposedly plodding Badgers have now scored 80 or more points in three of their past five games and have averaged 80.4 over that span. Mighty Kentucky? They haven’t reached 80 points in five consecutive games. With Sam Dekker knocking down threes and Frank Kaminsky sensually rubbing trophies, we may be forced to consider that Wisconsin Badgers basketball is ... gasp ... entertaining.
Gonzaga
The Zags just can’t get over the hump. Mark Few has taken them to 16 consecutive NCAA Tournaments, but they still have yet to reach a Final Four. Gonzaga had a 38-34 lead four minutes into the second half, but were outscored 32-14 from there on out. Perhaps Gonzaga tempted fate by bringing Adam Morrison back to the team as a video assistant. His enduring college legacy is bawling and rolling around on the court while being eliminated in the 2006 Sweet 16. Today he is apparently some sort of emotionless, trained assassin.
Adam Morrison alert pic.twitter.com/ThHh5ID0Tz
— The Cauldron (@TheCauldron) March 29, 2015
If you want to win NBA titles, sure, put Morrison on your bench. But college basketball titles? No. What were you thinking, Mark Few?
Crying Kids
In the waning moments of Gonzaga’s loss to Duke, CBS cameras zoomed in on Mark Few’s young children. They were crying because their dad’s team was about to be eliminated. So some enterprising producer saw them and thought: “Oooh! Crying children! Let’s put them on national TV! They’re so adorably heartbroken!”
No. Stop this. Crying children shouldn’t be in the realm of entertainment. Now, adults who are emotionally children? Grown up fans who sob at the outcome of sporting events? Yes. Plaster them all over the TV. We want to revel in their heartbreak. It sustains us. We drink in their tears and grow stronger. But leave actual children alone.
Prospects
Kentucky’s Karl Anthony-Towns is a 6ft 11in, 19 year-old freshman who scored 25 points against Notre Dame and carried the Wildcats down the stretch. Duke’s Justise Winslow is a 6ft 8in, 19 year-old, do-everything freshman who is one of the most exciting Blue Devils players to watch since Grant Hill. Duke’s Jahlili Okafor is a 6ft 11in, 19 year-old freshman who controls the paint and may be the No1 overall pick in the draft. Kentucky and Duke wouldn’t have made it to the Final Four without them. It’s the Catch-22 of one-and-dones: All three likely will be gone after this season, yet if they were allowed to go to the NBA right from high school, college basketball would be even lighter in talent than it already is. We get to watch them play in college for another game or two and then they’ll be claimed by the NBA’s tanking victors. It’s not a great system, but it’s the one we have.
Speaking of bad systems, the Knicks reportedly don’t want anything to do with Karl Anthony-Towns – who is, again, a 6ft 11in 19 year-old who dominated an Elite Eight game – because Phil Jackson doesn’t think his “butt” is big enough. You don’t become the Knicks without doing Knicks things.
Ashley Judd
If Kentucky win the national title next Monday and is one day forced to vacate it due to NCAA violations, it won’t be because of anything Calipari did. My guess is that if Kentucky players are being paid, it’s by Ashley Judd’s agent. “Keep winning so Ashley gets more face time on TV. Please! I beg you! She needs more than the Dolphin Tale series! Keep reminding people she is out there and available!”
It’s hard to be too excited about your favorite basketball team being undefeated and just two wins away from a national championship, but – in the performance of her lifetime – Ashley Judd has managed to pull it off, standing and dancing for the cameras after seemingly every even semi-positive play. Kentucky fans have even tired of the act, most notably: those who are paying big bucks to sit close to the court, only to find they’re stuck directly behind Judd’s one-woman show.
Calipari and the Wildcats no doubt want to complete their mission in Indianapolis and cut down the nets. But should they? Ethically? A title may kill Ashley Judd. If she doesn’t explode trying to top her previous celebrations, she could be stabbed by someone sitting behind her.
Consider the life of Ashley Judd, Wildcats. Do the right thing.
