Jeremy Lin comparisons; Notes on the Islanders, swimming, Tiger and NCAA Tournament

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Anyone who has ever read this blog knows I rarely write about the NBA. The last time I really cared about the league was about the same time that the Knicks won their second and last title in 1973.

I watched Magic and Bird and Jordan but not with any great passion. Appreciation yes, passion not so much. I think about the only time I’ve ever gotten really excited about a game in the last 20 years was when Steve Kerr made the clinching three pointer for the Bulls in 1997.

I do, occasionally, tune in when I’m home to see just how poorly The Washington Wizards can play on a given night. Most of their games should be on Comedy Central. That said, Jordan’s Charlotte Bobcats are worse.

Right now though it is impossible to be a sports fan of any kind and not be aware of Jeremy Lin—I won’t use the phrase Lin-sanity because it is the kind of silly cliché that trivializes something that is truly remarkable. Let’s just say that what the kid is doing is amazing and leave it at that.

Let’s NOT compare him to Tim Tebow because, other than the fact that he is also a devout Christian, the two of them have nothing in common. Tebow was a star in high school who was recruited by just about everyone. He won a Heisman Trophy, was part of two national championship teams at Florida and—whether the so-called experts agreed or not—he WAS a first round draft choice. He’s been a star all his life. The only thing that accorded him any sort of underdog status was the constant braying about his throwing motion. Ever see Jim Furyk swing a golf club? Does he look like a U.S. Open champion?

Tebow has always been a good to great football player. Do I think he’s the next Tom Brady or Drew Brees or Eli Manning? No. But he’s proven he can play quarterback in the NFL just as he proved he could play in high school and then in college and everything about his resume says, ‘star.’

Jeremy Lin? He was right in Stanford’s backyard and the basketball coaches averted their eyes. He sent tapes to all The Ivy League schools and most of them said, ‘thanks, but no thanks.’ Boston College Coach Steve Donahue, who was then the coach at Cornell, readily admits he and his coaches didn’t think he was good enough to play for them coming out of high school.

Lin was offered a guaranteed spot on the basketball team by two schools: Harvard and Brown. He went to Harvard to play for Coach Frank Sullivan and then played for Tommy Amaker after Sullivan was (unfairly) fired by Harvard after Lynn’s freshman season. He was an All-Ivy Player for Amaker—not player-of-the-year—All-Ivy. He was undrafted, cut by two teams and a month ago was playing in the NBA Development League. Only injuries to several Knicks guards gave him the chance he has now converted into stardom.

No one knows if this will be Lin’s 15 days of fame or if he will turn out to be Kurt Warner, who went from bagging groceries to a Super Bowl winning quarterback. Will the league adjust to him? Will the magic wear off when Carmelo Anthony returns and the ball stops moving whenever it touches his hands?

Who knows?

What we do know is this: Lin has come from nowhere to somewhere his entire career. We know that he has made Asian-American proud with his play. The best sign I’ve seen in a long time was being held by an Asian-American the other night: It said, “Who says Asians can’t drive?”

Is Lin being hyped to the max everywhere he goes because he’s Asian-American? Because no one recruited him? Because he went to Harvard? Because he’s a devout Christian? Because he was cut twice?

Yes to all of the above.

Not because he’s with the Knicks—I’m not going to jump back on that bandwagon after all these years; I’ll keep hoping the Islanders can keep improving enough to sneak into the playoffs somehow—but because he’s a great story, I hope he keeps it going. God knows after the lockout and given the general quality of basketball in this play-every-night season, the NBA could use a legitimate feel-good story.

Anything that keeps people from talking about LeBron James for a few days can’t be a bad thing.

*****

Catching up on a few notes:

--Someone asked the other day if I thought the Islanders could make the playoffs. They’re certainly playing better but losing at home to Florida doesn’t help things at all. They’re going to have to win about two-of-every-three from here on in and that’s tough. Last night was a very good win in Winnipeg but tonight in St. Louis will be one of those games where stealing one point would be a huge victory.

--Master nationals in Indy next spring? Now THAT should give me incentive to get into decent shape. Swim all day, gorge myself at St. Elmo’s at night. Perfect.

--To my friend Bill and the other Tiger-does-no-wrong defenders. 1. He said he was playing for the money in Abu Dhabi only when asked and knowing that everyone knew it anyway. On his web site his initial explanation was, ‘wanting to see new places.’ BTW, how’d you like him marking and refusing to get off the stage for Phil Mickelson on the 18th hole at Pebble Beach on Sunday the way every other golfer on tour would have done for another player who is clearly going to win a tournament? Forget me, every single player on tour noticed that one.

--What does it say about the NCAA that it allowed Jeff Hathaway to remain as chairman of the basketball committee even after he ‘resigned,’ as athletic director at Connecticut. I like Jeff personally, I’ve known him since he was one of Lefty Driesell’s managers 30 years ago, but he was in charge of a program that was allowed to play in last year’s NCAA Tournament while on probation and, as of right now, is not eligible for next year’s NCAA Tournament because of glaring academic deficiencies. The Big East created some bogus ‘consulting,’ job for Hathaway this year so he’d still be eligible to be on the committee and retain the chairmanship. If Hathaway had gone off the committee and his spot had been taken by a new Big East rep, the new person would not have been chairman. So, even though there are no politics on the committee—we know this because this is what we are told, right?—The Big East made sure it would not lose it’s chairmanship. Beyond that, after Gene Smith was allowed to remain as chairman last year even while his house at Ohio State was burning to the ground (see Tressel, Jim) it is remarkable that the NCAA would allow Hathaway to retain his chairmanship given Connecticut’s recent track record.

Then again, it isn’t remarkable. It’s the NCAA.

My newest book is now available at your local bookstore, or you can order on-line here: One on One-- Behind the Scenes with the Greats in the Game 

Images and thoughts of Lorenzo Charles

Every once in a while something happens that shakes you more than you thought it would. I remember when Tom Seaver retired in 1986 feeling old because Seaver had been my boyhood hero and I remembered so vividly his early years with the Mets when I hung on every pitch he threw as if it was the most important moment of my life.

Seaver taught me a lesson early in my career about athletes and how they view what they do and how different it is from how we (fans) view what they do. He was pitching in Cincinnati—that alone was a jolt to my system that I’m not sure I ever completely got over—and the Reds were in Houston. I was also in Houston covering an NBA playoff series between the Rockets and the Kansas City (yes it was a long time ago) Kings.

On an off-night between games 3 and 4 I went to The Astrodome and asked Seaver if he could give me some time to talk. I had successfully pitched the idea of a Seaver feature to my boss who felt the same way about down time on the road as I did: If you’re somewhere and there’s a story to write, go write it.

Seaver agreed on one condition: That I would tell him everything I knew about Janet Cooke, The Washington Post reporter who had made up a story about a 6-year-old heroin addict. The story had won The Pulitzer Prize but the award had been returned by The Post when a series of events led to Cooke admitting she had made up the whole thing.

As it happened, I had been on The Metro staff with Cooke and knew her fairly well so I was happy to tell Seaver what I knew. I was also intrigued that he knew about Cooke. The story had been front-page news but I didn’t know a lot of athletes who actually read the front page.

What he said that I’ve always remembered came during a discussion of the 1969 Miracle Mets. I had gone to 66 Mets games at Shea Stadium that season, paying $1.30 to sit in upper general admission most days and nights. I had sat in front of the TV and watched—always keeping score—most of the other games the Mets had played.

As Seaver and I talked, I kept asking very detailed questions because my memories were so vivid and the whole thing had been SO important to me. Finally, Seaver smiled indulgently at me.

“You need to understand something,” he said. “You remember this the way a fan does and I get that. But as a ballplayer it isn’t the same. Sure, there are some moments that stick out but not all that many. We played, what 170 games that year including postseason. I just don’t remember as much as you do.”

I was stunned. And yet, now, looking back, I realize that a lot of those moments when I was yelling from the upper deck or my parents living room weren’t that big a deal in the grand scheme of 170 games. I remembered September 10th as a seminal day in my life because it was the first time The Mets ever went into first place. Seaver remembered that at some point in September they went into first place. I remember that it was at 9:07 on September 24th that the Mets clinched The National League East (I can still hear Lindsey Nelson yelling the time right after Joe Torre hit in to a double play to end the game). Seaver remembered that a lot of champagne got poured on people’s heads that night.

Because of that conversation and because he had been so important to me as a kid, Seaver’s retirement, which came ironically after he was inactive for the Red Sox during the 1986 World Series, made me feel very old.

Lorenzo Charles’ death on Monday was stunning in a different, yet similar way. Seaver’s retirement reminded me that my boyhood was long gone, especially since it came at almost the exact moment that my first book was published. Charles’s death brings back what are now bittersweet memories of a time when The Final Four was still the best event there was on the sports calendar, especially for a then-young sportswriter.

I probably saw that 1983 North Carolina State team play at least a dozen times. I watched the Wolfpack grind through February without Dereck Whittenburg (who had a broken foot) and listened to Jim Valvano talk about what might-have-been if Whittenburg hadn’t been hurt.

Everyone knows the rest: Whittenburg hobbled back just before the ACC Tournament and State pulled off one miracle after another. They should have lost to Wake Forest in the first round of the ACC Tournament but somehow won in overtime. Seven wins later—even after winning the ACC Tournament they didn’t receive a first round bye and were very fortunate to beat Pepperdine in the first round of the NCAA’s—they found themselves playing Houston for the national championship.

My friend Dave Kindred wrote a column on the morning of that game declaring, “Trees will tap dance and elephants will drive in the Indy 500 before N.C. State beats Houston.”

We all know what happened that night. The trees tap-danced and the elephants grew racing stripes. State hung in the game somehow; Guy Lewis made the critical mistake of deciding to try to run out the clock and Whittenburg fired a last second prayer towards the basket from 35-feet. To this day I remember thinking while the ball was in the air, “no way can they win this in overtime.”

At the very instant that I got to the end of that thought Charles rose, seemingly from out of the floor, caught the ball and dunked it in one motion. Twenty-eight years later the next few minutes remain a blur: Valvano running in circles looking for someone to hug; Cozell McQueen sitting on the rim; the Houston players on their knees in complete shock, most of them crying. Having watched the tape about a million times I can still hear Billy Packer saying, “They did it!” in total disbelief when he realized that Charles had dunked the ball just before the buzzer and State had won the championship.

Of course nowadays if the same play occurred we would have to wait five minutes for the officials to determine that the shot beat the buzzer. Talk about sucking drama from a moment.

What’s interesting, thinking back to that night, is that I can’t remember a single thing Charles said about his dunk. Valvano developed an entire 15-minute bit about the last play that he used when he spoke; Whittenburg insisted for years that his shot was a pass and he and Sidney Lowe and Thurl Bailey are remembered together as the three seniors who were the glue on that team.

Which they were. But it was Charles, just a sophomore at the time, who made them champions.

I only interviewed him one-on-one once. It was during his senior year in 1985 when he was the respected veteran on a very talented team of knuckleheads that included Chris Washburn and Charles Shackleford. All I can remember about our talk is that Charles was quiet but clearly very in tune with his team and his coach. He was like the wise elder who had seen it all.

Which, in a sense, he had.

He played just one year in the NBA and was apparently a co-owner of a bus and limo company when his bus went off the road on I-40 nearly Raleigh on Monday. The first thing that struck me when I saw the news that he had died was his age: 47. Valvano was 47 when he died of cancer in 1993. It was just a bit eerie.

For me, thinking about Lorenzo Charles at 47, driving a bus down a familiar highway and having his life suddenly end is both sad and depressing. My image of him will always be the same: rising above a scramble under a basket one night in Albuquerque and making a play that will always be a part of the basketball pantheon.

He was just a kid back then. In a very real sense so was I. Time passes in this life much too fast.

VCU proves experts wrong; Final Four: underdog/good guy divisions vs. not-so-good-guy/overdog division

I know it has been a while and I apologize to those who look for this blog on a regular basis. I went underground last week, retreating at the suggestion of my remarkably patient wife to Shelter Island to dig in and try to finish a book. The good news is I got a remarkable amount of work done in six days. The bad news is I still haven’t quite reached the finish line.

Choosing not to go to a regional site was a mixed blessing. Not having to try to file at ridiculous hours of the night thanks to the NCAA’s selling of its soul to TV was something I didn’t miss. Not dealing with the constant feeling that I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that you are in a police state when you are in the arena also wasn’t missed. And not having to deal with more internet problems—the NCAA is the only major organization that CHARGES for internet and then most of the time it doesn’t work—was also a very good thing.

So, I stretched out in front of the TV in the evenings and watched the games. Let me begin by patting myself on the back (something I’m pretty good at as most people know) for saying—and writing—on Selection Sunday that VCU belonged in the field. I advocated all season for the CAA getting three bids because I believed the quality of play in the league merited three bids. I can’t tell you how many stories I’ve read in recent days that include the phrase, “all the experts said VCU didn’t merit a bid.”

Okay, I’m happy not to be lumped in with the talking heads, especially those on ESPN. My friend Jay Bilas needs to swallow hard, drop the lawyer-line about, “just because they got a chance and played well doesn’t mean they deserved the chance.”

YES THEY DID. They have proven more than definitively that they deserved the chance and you Jay—and others—just had it wrong. How about saying this: “You know I probably didn’t see VCU play enough to fairly judge them. They’re better than I thought they were.”

Heck, they’re certainly better than I thought they were. Did I believe they should be in the field? Absolutely. Did I think they’d be in The Final Four? Of course not. Beating USC didn’t surprise me nor did beating Georgetown—because the Hoyas did their collapse act again. I’ve said before and I will say again, I think John Thompson III is a good coach and a good guy. But in the last four years—or since Jeff Green and Roy Hibbert, both recruited by Craig Esherick—left the program (actually Hibbert was still there in ’08) Georgetown has won ONE NCAA Tournament game, against a No. 15 seed UMBC back in ’08. Since then: NIT; first round blowout loss to Ohio University; first round blowout loss to VCU. (The round of 64 is still the first round no matter what the NCAA euphemists call it).

Something’s wrong inside that locker room. Georgetown is the most secret society this side of The CIA so we may never know exactly what went wrong but if you read body language you know those kids weren’t very excited about being together on the court against VCU.

I thought the Rams run would probably end against Purdue. They crushed the Boilermakers too. I thought the Florida State game was a tossup and it was: teams of destiny win those games. And Kansas? No way was Kansas going to lose to another mid-major after the Northern Iowa debacle a year ago, right? Wrong. The Jayhawks played as if they thought this was a pre-season game. Then when they realized how good VCU was they panicked and started firing bricks that could have rebuilt The Berlin Wall.

Wow. Good for Shaka Smart and good for those kids and for that school and, by the way, for the CAA. I might have been wrong: maybe the league deserved four bids: Hofstra was pretty damn good too.

The committee got it right with VCU. For the most part it got just about everything else wrong. I’m not going to go the Charles Barkley route and declare The Big East overrated. It wasn’t—it was very good with a lot of good to very good teams. But Villanova should have played its way out of the field with its monumental February-March collapse. The committee—as always—just looked at numbers. Hey, anyone WATCH the South Florida game? Talk about a team in disarray. Did we need seven Big Ten teams? No. UAB got in for one reason: Steve Orsini, committee member from SMU, got his conference an extra bid. The tournament would have been fine without USC. Oh, and one more nitpick: Clearly if you were seeding the last four No. 16 seeds based on records and RPI and perhaps even—God Forbid—watching them play, UNC-Asheville and Arkansas-Little Rock would have been 1-2 and clearly ahead of UT-San Antonio and Alabama State, by far the lowest ranked team in the field. And yet, the first two played one another while UT-San Antonio got to play Alabama State. Hmmm, how could that have happened? Does the name Lynn Hickey ring a bell? Committee member; AD at….you guessed it…UT-San Antonio.

You know what? I may be wrong when I say the committee isn’t transparent. In truth, it is VERY transparent. If you’re paying attention.

But, fine, whatever. As I’ve said before it doesn’t bother me that much that the committee gets it wrong because it is made up of people who don’t know much about basketball. (okay, it bothers me). But what REALLY bothers me is the sanctimony and the self-righteousness. They get everything wrong and sit there and claim they got everything right. My cats could seed the tournament better than these guys and do it for a lot less and with a lot less self-congratulations or discussions of ‘student-athletes.’

Anyway, The Final Four has two clear divisions: There is the underdog/good guy division: Butler-VCU. What Butler has done is completely amazing. Honestly, if I was starting a college basketball program tomorrow and could hire one coach it would be Brad Stevens. He is very much the real deal. He’s smart, he understands the game and he understands life. His kids trust him implicitly and he NEVER panics. So, they never panic. That’s why they keep winning close games. Back-to-back Final Fours at Butler? My God. Put that guy in the Hall of Fame NOW.

Then there is the not-so-good-guy/overdog division: U-Conn and Kentucky. As it happens, I like both Jim Calhoun and John Calipari. I think they’re both superb coaches. They get kids who have one eye on the doorway to the NBA—if not two—to play hard all the time. But the fact is Calhoun and Connecticut have just been convicted by the NCAA of major recruiting violations and got off with a wrist-slap because they’re a big-time TV program. That’s how it works and we all know it.

The other fact is this—although you will never hear it mentioned on CBS or ESPN— Calipari has overseen two programs that have had Final Four appearances vacated.

PLEASE don’t give me the morning pitchmen line from today: “Well, um, Calipari had two programs that, um, had some problems, HE didn’t have problems, the programs did…” Right, he was an innocent bystander. COME ON! And we all know Kentucky’s history. (Go ahead Kentucky fans, explain how your program has NEVER done anything wrong and this is all about me not liking Kentucky.).

So, the final will match a true Cinderella—and Butler is STILL Cinderella no matter how good it has become—against one school on probation and one that’s been there before coached by a guy who has twice been vacated. Talk about good vs. evil.

Anyway, regardless of the outcome you can be sure of two things: the game won’t be over until close to midnight and the committee blowhards will be patting themselves on the back for great job the minute that buzzer finally goes off.

Yeah, great job. Sort of like the Mets owners have done the past few years.

The tournament is a beautiful thing (Note: answer to reader questions added about the Tony Kornheiser Show)

I wrote a sentence in today’s Washington Post that comes back to me every March: The NCAA basketball tournament is so good even the NCAA can’t ruin it. The line is actually a spinoff of something Tony LaRussa said to me back in 1992 when we were discussing the inevitably of another work stoppage in baseball because the owners had decided to declare war on the players union. When I asked LaRussa how badly the game would be damaged he smiled and said, “The game is better than all of us.”

He was right. The same is true of the tournament. Thursday afternoon, if you were at home with your TV remote, you got one remarkable finish after another and you no doubt came away thinking, “Now I remember what all the hype is about.” Sitting in Verizon Center watching Butler play Old Dominion I thought the same thing. Of course I also thought it was ridiculous for two teams this good to have to play one another in the first round. Clearly the committee didn’t want either of these teams taking on one of their cherished lower-seeded teams from a major conference because the result would have been similar to Richmond-Vanderbilt and Gonzaga-St. John’s. Seriously, who scouted The Atlantic-10 for the committee this year, Charlie Sheen?

A couple of fairly interesting notes did surface before yesterday’s game. Someone who once served on the committee pointed out to me that this is the first year in almost 40 years that Tom Jernstedt wasn’t in the committee room. Jernstedt was always the staff member, I’m told, who was the calming influence, who had the ability to get away from just looking at numbers to point out cracks in the bracket that needed to be fixed.

“Tom didn’t just stare at a computer the way the (staff) techno-geeks do now,” the ex-member said. (I’m not using his name because I don’t want to jeopardize his lifetime pass to The Final Four). “He’d go out for a drink when everything was done with a couple of guys and actually TALK basketball. Then he’d come back in the morning and say, ‘fellas, I think we need to look at this again.’ They didn’t have that this year.”

That’s a good point. A couple of other notes: If you wonder why Colorado didn’t make the field think about this: Dan Beebe is on the committee. He’s the commissioner of The Big 12—which happens to be the league Colorado is leaving next year. You think Beebe’s colleagues knew how he felt about that departure? Beebe was also, it turns out, this year’s tournament scout for the ACC. I’m sure Seth Greenberg will be sending him flowers—along with Ron Wellman—sometime in the near future.

Oh, one other thing: There were four No. 16 seeds sent to Dayton: UNC-Asheville; Arkansas-Little Rock; Texas-San Antonio and Alabama State. If you were to rank those four teams based on their resumes Asheville and UALR would be 1 and 2. And yet, they played one another while Texas-San Antonio somehow drew Alabama State, a .500 team that was clearly the weakest team in the field based on regular season results.

Hmmm. How did that happen? Couldn’t have anything to do with Lynn Hickey, the AD at Texas-San Antonio being on the committee could it? Her buddies decided they would do everything they could to hand her school an NCAA Tournament win—and succeeded.

Here’s the thing about being in an arena for this tournament. It is still great fun because the games are great fun. But you feel like you are living in a police state. NO ONE is allowed to take any kind of drink anyplace unless it is in the appropriate corporate cup. I have seen coaches practically tackled walking onto a podium because they haven’t poured their postgame drink into the right cup.

Even the TV guys, for all the money their networks have spent on the tournament, are on eggshells. In NCAA world there is no such thing as The NBA—seriously, that is one of the marching orders the announcers are given. You do NOT refer to a player’s pro potential or even ‘the next level.’ It doesn’t exist. A few years ago when George Washington was in the tournament Red Auerbach’s name came up. At no point did the words, ‘Boston Celtics,’ cross anyone’s lips. There is also, as we know, no such thing as gambling. I almost fell off my chair laughing Tuesday night when Seth Davis gave Asheville a chance to beat Pittsburgh and Charles Barkley immediately said he’d like to make a wager with Seth on that game. Before this is over, Barkley may let one of the dreaded ‘L’ words—Lebron, Lakers—slip out of his mouth.

The good news about being in the media is we still get great seats. The day is coming when we’re moved up to hockey press boxes and that will be the day when I DO stay home. As it is, The Final Four court is now raised so that everyone at courtside—except for the TV guys who sit on raised chairs—is looking up at the court. That’s so the corporate types right behind us have a better view. Okay, fine.

But can the NCAA at least come up with halfway decent internet? The NCAA is the ONLY event—major or minor—that charges for internet use. They claim it is because of ‘existing contracts.’ I think it is because they want to scoop up every dollar they can find on every street corner. Being charged wouldn’t make people so angry if the internet WORKED. It never does—and I mean never. This year we were told that each credential-holder had to pay a $20 fee to get a hard-wire line at your seat. (You had to pay the $20 regardless so you might as well pay for the hard-wire).

Okay fine, at least that should be reliable. Except it wasn’t. I was sitting between Liz Clarke from The Post and Dana O’Neil from ESPN.com both of whom had to file at the end of each game at the buzzer. There was ONE Ethernet line for four seats—not one for each seat as promised. The wireless didn’t work. Then the Ethernet didn’t work. Poor Mex Carey, the Georgetown SID who is in charge of this site, was getting yelled at from about 15 sides at once. It wasn’t his fault. It was the NCAA’s fault and the fault of the incompetent internet company it insists on using every year. Existing contracts my you-know-what. How about FIRING someone for cause.

Okay, enough boring sportswriter stuff.

Here are some other observations from day one:

--Morehead State over Louisville was the game of the day although Kentucky-Princeton would have topped it if the Tigers had pulled the game out. Would the state of Kentucky have simply shut down entirely if both teams had lost in the first round on the same day?

Connecticut is for real. That week in The Big East was no fluke. Bucknell is not a bad mid-major team and it had NO chance against the Huskies. They have a truly great player in Kemba Walker; they’re deep; they have great size and length and they have a coach who knows what to do this time of year. If they end up in the Final Four it will be no surprise to me.

--Butler is a great group of kids to talk to. They’re bright, they’re outgoing, they’re honest and they’re funny. I have nothing at all against Pittsburgh, in fact I like Jamie Dixon a lot, but if they could pull off the upset on Saturday it would be a lot of fun. By the way, how good would Butler be if Gordon Hayward had stuck around?

--I love college basketball but I’ve gotten too old to make it through four games in a day that average about 2:15 apiece. I missed Cincinnati-Missouri. Kemba Walker could feel his legs. I couldn’t feel mine. It’s also tough when you have 45 minutes to get something to eat between sessions—I had to write—and the NCAA has mandated you may have ONE chicken breast. Seriously, I’ve never believed food in the press room needs to be free. But when you have no choice but to eat there, you should be able to pay and not have someone tell you, ‘one per customer pal.’ I was in the building for 11 hours Thursday (and I missed the last game remember) I could have used one more piece of chicken. (Yes, I ate my veggies but come on, how much can a man take?).

Today, I get to sit home and watch on TV. I’m looking forward to it. I can drink out of any cup I want to drink out of and have more than one chicken breast. And I can use the remotes during the endless TV timeouts and the 20-minute halftime. Line of the day from CAA commissioner Tom Yeager: “You can recruit a transfer before the game starts and by the time halftime is over, he might be eligible.”

The tournament is a beautiful thing.

********

I’ve noticed a number of people have e-mailed or posted about my not being on Tony Kornheiser’s show the last couple of weeks.

Tony and I are just fine, in fact we talked at length on Wednesday. But his radio station made a budget decision to not pay regular guests on his show anymore and I felt, even though the money is minimal, that if the station didn’t value my time enough to continue paying me, then I shouldn’t continue to appear. I won’t put words in Tony’s mouth but I think it is fair to say that he understood my decision.

My basic policy on radio and TV has been pretty consistent through the years: If stations call me on occasion and ask me to come on to talk about a specific event or breaking news, I’m no different than the people I ask for interview time: I just do it. I expect them, in return, to have me on when I have a book out and with perhaps two exceptions through the years—a station in Phoenix I can’t remember and Mark Packer in Charlotte, who I do remember—they have understood the quid pro quo.

If a station asks me to appear regularly—as in at least once a week—they’re almost always getting the segment sponsored and, in any event, if I’m being asked to carve out time each week, I think I should be paid something. Tony, with his co-hosts and regular guests, has traditionally had a bigger budget than other shows at WTEM. He feels—and I agree— he should be able to do that since he’s got the station’s highest-rated show. Now, he’s been told he has to cut back. These things happen. I’ve got no hard feelings; I’m still on with Andy Pollin and Steve Czaban once a week and life moves on. I’ll miss doing the show—it’s fun—but I felt this was the right decision under the circumstances.

More thoughts on the politics of, and lack of transparency in, the NCAA selection process

It is no secret that I am not a big fan of the NCAA basketball committee—and that’s putting it mildly.

There was a time, however, where there were always a couple of guys on the committee who understood that the whole veil of secrecy that exists around the selection process was ludicrous. Jack Kvancz, the Athletic Director at George Washington, used to joke about it all the time. He even went so far as to formally propose that the committee allow a member of the media to sit in on the proceedings.

“No chance,” he told me later. “They laughed me out of the room.”

Jack should have been the committee chairman in 2003. He was passed over for Bob Bowlsby, the classic pretentious, phony administrative type the NCAA so loves to promote. Jack was simply too much of a straight shooter to be chairman. He might have actually been caught in a truth.

So, it is hardly a shock Jack got shouted down quickly when he even suggested opening up the process to the public—which is what putting a media rep in the room would do. You see, when you are on the basketball committee, you are doing work that MUST be secret. Murder trials are on television; every vote in Congress is recorded so the public can pass judgment on it but the NCAA basketball committee does everything in secret.

Oh please.

The worst part of it though is they keep trying to tell the public that they aren’t being secretive. Nowadays, the committee chairman does conference calls with the media leading up to Selection Sunday and that night after the brackets are announced. Of course he NEVER says anything. Sunday night, Ohio State Athletic Director Gene Smith, who is the current chairman, simply wouldn’t answer any questions. At one point he told the CBS guys during their softball-fest that one of the criteria for getting in to the tournament was ‘style of play.’

Tracee Hamilton, one of The Washington Post’s columnists walked into the office where I was working and said to me, “did he really say style of play?”

Yup, he did. Next thing you know we’re going to have judges at courtside. The East German judge’s vote will no doubt be thrown out.

For years, I have pounded on the committee to let a member of the media sit in on their meetings. Not me—honestly, I’d rather watch a 0-0 soccer game for 120 minutes on a continuous loop than spend four days with those guys—but someone; perhaps the president of the U.S. Basketball Writer’s Association or someone designated by the USBWA if the president has another assignment that weekend.

There are two reasons I think this should happen: 1. The public has a right to know how the teams are selected and seeded and who votes for and against certain teams and 2. It would be better for the committee to PROVE to the public that all their claims that there aren’t any politics in the process are true. NO ONE believes it. My guess is the reason they won’t let a reporter in is because there are politics involved.

Several years ago, in response to the constant questioning of the system by me and by others, the NCAA—always willing to stonewall at any turn—came up with what it calls the ‘mock selection,’ process. Reporters were invited to participate in a mock selection of a field in February so we could ‘truly understand,’ how the teams are selected.

I’m pretty sure this was the brainstorm of Greg Shaheen, who was brought in to the NCAA by then-president Myles Brand to, among other things, improve the NCAA’s image. Shaheen’s a smart guy and, until last April, we communicated regularly—sometimes in a friendly way; sometimes exchanging arguments on issues. That changed when I called him out during The NCAA’s pat-itself-on-the-back Final Four press conference when he tried to claim that a 96-team tournament would somehow involved LESS missed class time for ‘student-athletes.’

Now, Shaheen doesn’t respond when I send him e-mails. I even sent him an e-mail asking when he was going to get over what had happened in Indianapolis last spring and he didn’t respond to THAT. Which is fine; he’s not the first and won’t be the last.

That said, the ‘mock bracket,’ was and is Shaheen’s baby. He did everything but beg me to participate, figuring if he could get me to but what he was selling he could probably get almost anyone to buy in. He and the committee have done a great job selling it to a lot my colleagues who love to go around telling people how they now ‘understand,’ the process. Oh please. You think because you sit in a room and look at RPI’s and take mock votes that you understand the process? Do you understand that Ron Wellman, the Wake Forest Athletic Director who is on the committee now, completely blew it by allowing only four ACC teams to be selected—one of them sent to Dayton? Do you understand that Steve Orsini, the SMU Athletic Director should be Conference-USA’s man-of-the-year for somehow convincing the committee to give UAB an at-large bid?

No, you don’t, because you buy into the notion that Wellman left the room when ACC teams were being voted on and Orsini did the same when Conference-USA teams were being voted on. Maybe so but how many hours during the day were they in the same room with the other members discussing teams? What did Wellman say when whomever had responsibility for scouting the ACC this year, said Virginia Tech wasn’t good enough? Or when someone suggested that Penn State—which lost to Virginia Tech—was a better pick than the Hokies because they beat Michigan State on Saturday while Virginia Tech was losing to Duke?

On Monday I sent a note to David Worlock, who is the NCAA’s basketball PR person. Worlock is a really good guy. He works very hard, is incredibly responsive to requests and questions and extremely patient—especially with people like me who he knows are not going to be receiving any good guy awards from the NCAA any day soon.

I asked Dave to ask Gene Smith two questions: Who voted for and against Virginia Tech and which committee member was assigned to the ACC this season? I knew the answer to both questions—none of your business—but I wanted that answer on the record. Dave patiently wrote back to say that and then added a lengthy—and I mean LENGTHY explanation of various criteria—which told me absolutely nothing. He then suggested—again, as Shaheen has done repeatedly the last few years—that I would understand the process better if I attended a mock bracket session.

I give Worlock credit for trying but it’s not going to happen. I told him if he and the committee really wanted me to understand the process, invite me to the real thing. (Again, I’d prefer someone else go, but at this point I’d have to go if invited since I’ve been running my mouth for so long about it. That said, I think I’m pretty safe making plans for selection weekend next year that do not include a trip to Indy.)

Here’s one other problem: the committee doesn’t have enough basketball people on it. With the exception of Stan Morrison—who goes off the committee after this season—there are no ex-coaches on the committee. Nothing but administrators, each a bit more sanctimonious than the rest. My favorite is Lynn Hickey, the AD at Texas-San Antonio. Last year during the USBWA’s annual Final Four meeting with the committee, when we had made a couple of requests to try to speed the postgame process after late night games, Hickey told us, “you know, everything we do is for the student-athletes.”

It took all my self control at that moment not to say, “PLEASE, I’M BEGGING YOU; SHUT-UP.” Student-athletes? Right. Meanwhile, they’re flying all over the country this week and next week and the week after that and the games are played later and later at night and, by the way, how much class do you think those kids from The Big East schools went to last week?

Any time you hear someone from the NCAA use the phrase, ‘student-athletes,’ check your wallet.

My friend and former student Seth Davis once referred to the great high school scout Tom Konchalski as, “the only honest man in the gym,” while walking into a summer basketball camp. The basketball committee could use Konchalski in the room. That way, there would be one honest man in there too.

Washington Post column: A Lack of Accountability

Here is my newest column for The Washington Post -------------

The problem with the NCAA tournament bracket that was unveiled Sunday night isn’t the product.
Debate over who got in and who didn’t is going to occur every year whether the field consists of 64 teams, 68 teams or the 96 teams the NCAA will someday shove down our throats.

And while only one member of this year’s tournament selection committee has actually coached Division I basketball — Stan Morrison, who last did so in 1998 — the process isn’t necessarily the issue either.

The problem is accountability — specifically, the committee’s utter lack of it. Without it, we have no way of knowing whether the process was fair or not.

Something is rotten in Indianapolis.

Click here for the rest of the column: A Lack of Accountability

Washington Post - Region by region analysis of the NCAA Tournament

This series of columns is for today's The Washington Post --------------

Southwest Region -- Kansas appears locked in as it sets sights on Houston

If ever a team looked like a Final Four lock, it was Kansas a year ago. If ever a team looks like a Final Four lock, it is Kansas this year.

Of course last year the Jayhawks lost in the second round to Northern Iowa, an upset only the folks in Cedar Rapids might have seen coming. Do not expect the same from UNLV or Illinois — Illinois, really? Over Virginia Tech? Was the ACC that bad this season?

The best first-round matchup in the entire tournament (other than Butler-ODU) might be Vanderbilt-Richmond. The committee clearly loves the SEC; not so much the Atlantic 10. The A-10 tournament champion got a No. 12 seed. It is seeded lower than Georgia, which belongs in the tournament less than Illinois but slightly more than UAB.

That said, the most dangerous team on the road to Houston for Kansas might be Purdue if only because Notre Dame is so dependent on three-point shooting. The Irish can beat anyone, but can they stay hot for four straight games? That’s the second-most asked question in South Bend these days, right after, “How do the quarterbacks look in spring practice?”

Click here for the rest of the column: Southwest Region

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West Region: West Region could have a Hollywood ending, or a predictable coronation

It could happen. On the other hand, Texas could survive that game — and it almost assuredly will not be easy — and if it does, could easily find itself in the region final. This is a very wide open region. The hottest team entering the tournament is the No. 3 seed, Connecticut. The Huskies may also be the most tired. Duke is the No. 1 seed, but the committee did it no favors with a second-round game against either Michigan or Tennessee. The Vols may be the most schizophrenic team in the field — a reflection of their coach — and Michigan shoots threes a lot, which makes it dangerous when they go in. Don’t be stunned by an early Duke exit. It has happened before.

San Diego State is the mystery No. 2 seed. On the one hand, the Aztecs have two losses all season, both to Brigham Young when the Cougars were whole. On the other hand, they haven’t been tested in either conference play or nonconference play the way the other high seeds have been. A second-round game against Temple or Penn State will tell us a lot about them. If the committee had any sense of history, it would put Temple-Penn State in at the Palestra. But this is a group whose chairman now refers to “style of play,” as a criteria for getting into the field. If so, how can Penn State and Wisconsin be allowed anywhere near any tournament building?

One of the most popular first-round upset picks will come out of this region: Oakland over Texas. The Longhorns, who looked like a possible No. 1 seed a month ago, stumbled to the finish line to drop to No. 4, and Oakland is one of those veteran teams from a mid-major conference that played a very tough nonconference schedule that included a win at Tennessee.

Click here for the rest of the column: West Region

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East Region: Virginia Tech left out of East bracket while George Mason faces tough draw

Let us begin with two local teams who the committee did wrong: Virginia Tech and George Mason.

If Mason wins that game, it gets to play Ohio State, the No. 1 seed in the entire tournament, on what will be virtually a home court for the Buckeyes in Cleveland. That’s the beauty of the pod system, which was a bad idea to begin with and remains that way. Mason would have been better off as a No. 10 seed than it is as a No. 8 seed. In fact, a 10th seed would have given them a potential second-round game against North Carolina — the same school it beat in the second round en route to the Final Four in 2006.

At least Jim Larranaga’s team is in the field. The same can’t be said for Virginia Tech. The ACC should seriously consider replacing Wake Forest Athletic Director Ron Wellman as its committee rep after he was clearly outmaneuvered by SMU Athletic Director Steve Orsini in the committee room. Somehow, UAB got a second bid for Orsini’s league (Conference USA) while the ACC got just four bids — with Clemson getting sent to Dayton for the play-in round. (Sorry, NCAA, I’m not buying into this “First Four” marketing brand.)

The good news for the Patriots is that they have a very winnable first-round game against a Villanova team that became the first in tournament history to get an at-large bid after losing its last five games. That’s where the good news ends.


Click here for the rest of the column: East Region

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Southeast Region: Pitt had best beware of ODU-Butler winner

The NCAA tournament selection committee may have decided it likes CBS and Turner’s money more than ESPN’s, but it clearly buys into ESPN’s Big East hype. So if you take 11 teams from one conference, you better do everything you can to ensure at least one of them makes the Final Four.

The anointed Big East team is clearly Pittsburgh. The Panthers have what amounts to a dream draw. Jamie Dixon has been close to the Final Four, but has never quite gotten there. He will never have a better chance than right now.

Consider the next three seeds in his region: Florida, which won a remarkably weak SEC; BYU, which deserves the No. 3 seed but is without leading rebounder Brandon Davies; and Wisconsin, which is as well-coached as any team in the tournament but scored 33 points against Penn State on Friday. Pitt’s most dangerous game may be its second, against Old Dominion or Butler.

Putting ODU and Butler up against each other on the 8-9 line is pretty close to criminal. ODU is the best rebounding team in the country and won the most underrated conference in the country. Forget that Butler was two inches from being the defending champion in this event; the Bulldogs have won nine straight, and their conference was the toughest it has ever been.

Click here for the rest of the column: Southeast Region

Washington Post column: 'John Feinstein: The NCAA's version of justice is puzzling'

The following is this weekend's column for The Washington Post taking a look at the NCAA's  self-righteousness and secrecy in both their enforcement staff decisions and the tournament selection process.

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To paraphrase Jerry Tarkanian's oft-repeated quote involving Kentucky and Cleveland State, the NCAA must be so mad at Connecticut Coach Jim Calhoun that Radford's Brad Greenberg is going to get suspended for four games.

In truth, the NCAA didn't punish Radford's coach (the brother of Virginia Tech Coach Seth Greenberg) because the school did it first, suspending Greenberg for the final four games of the season. According to the school's news release, Greenberg was suspended for breaking NCAA rules involving, "team travel and associated extra benefits."

Here is what Greenberg did: He took Masse Doumbe with him to road games Radford played during Thanksgiving break and Christmas break even though he was ineligible. The NCAA had barred Doumbe from playing in the first 21 games of the season because he had played on a French team the NCAA deemed professional because one player on the team (not Doumbe) was being paid. Greenberg didn't want to leave him alone on campus during the holidays, so he brought him with the team.
That was the impermissible travel.

The extra benefits? Meals, and a bed to sleep in.

Imagine what might have happened if he had bought the kid an ice cream cone after a team meal.

But this is justice in college sports, whether it is meted out by a school trying to show it can really crack down on itself or the NCAA suspending Calhoun for three games next season for violations involving illegal contact with recruits and, specifically, the actions of a former team manager who was involved in the recruitment of a player.

Calhoun, who was never one to duck a tough question, has been reduced to putting out garbled statements from some lawyer about how Calhoun takes full responsibility but really this is no big deal and let's move on because there's a tournament to be played.

There is no one better than the NCAA when it comes to self-righteousness and secrecy. The simplest question is often met with absolute astonishment that it would even be asked. Last month, during one of the NCAA basketball committee chairman's conference calls leading up to Selection Sunday, Ohio State Athletic Director Gene Smith was asked by the Kansas City Star's Blair Kerkhoff, "Gene, can you tell us how many teams would be on your 'absolutely in' list right now?"


Click here for the rest of the article: John Feinstein: The NCAA's version of justice is puzzling

I’m not a fan of the prediction making business; Dan Snyder’s radio row blitz

The best news about waking up yesterday morning was knowing I could safely turn on the radio or the TV without hearing the words, “Who do you like in The Super Bowl?” I really and truly don’t care who you like or who anyone on radio or TV likes or, to be honest, who I like in The Super Bowl—or any event—before it is played. If I make a prediction and I’m right it is usually because I had a 50 percent chance of being right. Same if I’m wrong.

I thought the Packers would win on Sunday. Whooeee I’m an expert. I also thought they’d lose to The Atlanta Falcons. Whoops, I’m an idiot.

Years ago, when Annika Sorenstam was getting set to play at Colonial against the men, her appearance was getting almost as much attention as a Super Bowl. Then again, The Super Bowl probably got more column inches and more TV time than what’s going on in Egypt so maybe Annika v. the boys didn’t quite rise to that level.

As luck would have it I was promoting a golf book that month—my book on the U.S. Open at Bethpage. A number of national shows wanted me to come on and talk about Annika and my publicist spent a lot of time cutting deals: John will talk about Annika but you have to ask at least one question about the book. One show that had asked for me PRIOR to Annika announcing she’d play Colonial was a CNN show that was on in those days at 11 p.m. The booker wanted to have me on the day the book was published and insisted we not book any other national shows that day. In return, she promised an entire segment on the book. Since The Today Show was otherwise occupied with cooking segments, we accepted.

The host, I think, was Aaron Brown. To make a long story a little shorter, he completely pissed me off by ignoring the book throughout the entire segment. He even promo’d the segment by saying I was coming on to talk about Annika. When I was hooked up to him by satellite while the show was in commercial I said to him, “You promo’d Annika, I’m glad to talk about her but you know I’m here to talk about the new book.”

“Yeah, yeah, we’ll get to it,” he said, leaving me very close to walking out because I knew I was about to get screwed.

The entire segment was Annika. Finally he said, “So John, what’s your prediction on how she’ll do?”

I’d been well-behaved until then but the ‘who do you like in The Super Bowl,’ question put me over.

“Aaron I think making predictions is silly,” I said. “What does it matter what I think? Let’s just wait until Thursday and we’ll find out then. I can’t think of anything more boring than so-called experts making predictions.”

“Well I think a lot of the fun in sports is making predictions,” he answered in a pouty tone.

“Fine then, you make a prediction.”

At that point his producer DID finally throw the book cover on-screen and Brown grumpily mentioned it. As soon as we were in commercial he said, “What the hell kind of answer was that on the prediction?”

I said, “what the hell kind of segment ON MY BOOK was that?”

I took the earpiece off without waiting for an answer. The next day, “Mr. Brown’s assistant,” called my publicist demanding my phone number for, “Mr. Brown.” The publicist already knew what had happened so she held out on the phone number (I’d have been glad to talk to him). When the publicist offered e-mail, the assistant said—according to her—“Do you realize who Aaron Brown is?”

Speaking of which, just to show I’m consistent on the subject the one week a year I don’t do Tony Kornheiser’s show is the first week of the NCAA Tournament. He insists everyone who comes on goes through a bracket. I find this at least as dull as, “who do you like in The Super Bowl,” so I pass on it which annoys Tony no end.

I digress. The game was excellent and my colleague Sally Jenkins has a great column in today’s Washington Post on how out-of-control everything that surrounds the game has gotten. It won’t change. The NFL defines the word excess in every way. The game was the most watched TV show EVER. So why would they change anything?

One of the more amusing sights in Dallas had to be Dan Snyder and his little entourage making the rounds on radio row on Friday afternoon. Apparently, having been ripped from stem-to-stern after the announcement of his bully lawsuit against The City Paper, Snyder and his genius PR guy Tony Wyllie (who Snyder says suggested the lawsuit; if so he should be fired for coming up with the single stupidest idea since indoor baseball) decided to go on the offensive AGAIN so they could dig the hole a little deeper.

Of course every radio show was more than willing to have Snyder on. He came with a scripted message: HE HAD to file this lawsuit because The City Paper’s Dave McKenna had ‘gone over the line,’ when he had ‘made fun of my wife who has been battling breast cancer.’ Go back and read the story. There are two sentences about Tanya Snyder and they refer ONLY to her going on TV to talk about her new-and-improved husband as part of the Danny-over-DC PR campaign to convince Redskin fans who were completely sick of the guy that he was a brand new man.

That’s IT. No mention of breast cancer and certainly no making fun of Tanya on any level. Snyder simply made that up. In doing so, he used his wife, who no doubt has been through a lot fighting the disease, as a human shield against his own critics. That’s beyond cynical.

Step two was playing the Jew card again. At one point he said, “You know, Tony, who is African-American, called this Rabbi in LA….” First, who cares that Wyllie is African-American? What relevance does that have here? Second, the quote from the Rabbi was beyond offensive to people who really have dealt with anti-Semitism and invoking the Holocaust in any way to defend the actions of a billionaire bully-boy (I realize the Rabbi didn’t see it that way but that’s the way it came out) is beyond shameful.

Throw in the fact that Snyder owns a team that he insists on continuing to call The Washington REDSKINS and the notion of him complaining about any bias is either laughable or completely hypocritical or both. When Chad Dukes went on the local non-Snyder-owned radio station in DC had the temerity to bring that up, Snyder bristled.

“Obviously you don’t know the history of the Redskins,” he said. “We’ve won lawsuits. Even bringing that up is silly.”

Really? So now you, Danny Snyder, are judge and jury on what is offensive to Jews AND what is NOT offensive to Native Americans. Do you get elected to that job or do you get it by acclamation? By the way, winning a lawsuit doesn’t make anything right, it just makes it legal. It is legal for private clubs to discriminate against people. That doesn’t mean it is right. As for history: most of us know the history: The Redskins were founded in Boston and nicknamed ‘Redskins,’ in honor of the colonials who dressed up as Indians on the night of The Boston Tea Party.

That was a LONG time ago. Back then it was also okay according to society to call African Americans, ‘coloreds.’ This is 2011. What was right eighty years ago isn’t right now and that’s not political correctness.

The funniest bits were Snyder going on about his father having been in the media—“I love the media,”—and then taking one gratuitous shot after another at anyone and everyone in the media: “You know how The Post is, they love taking shots at me. That’s the way a lot of old media is. But you know we’re doing great in radio.” (Shades of the morning pitchmen at ESPN here; I half expected him to tell us who the next cheap shot was sponsored by). There was more: To Mike Wise, who actually tried to ask him a couple of follow-up questions that went beyond his script, “I know how you media guys are, you defend one another all the time no matter what.”

Yes, he loves the media.

I was about to write the words, ‘enough about Snyder,’ but what’s the point. He’s going to force me to write about him again soon because he’s going to continue to simply make things up to justify who he is. And, unlike some of my good friends, I’m going to respond when he does.

Washington Post column - The silver lining in the NCAA's cloudy format

There's a very old joke about a funeral. The rabbi stands in front of the congregation and says, "I know you all have something you want to say about our dear departed friend. So instead of a eulogy, I'd like you each to stand up and tell us what you loved best about him."

Complete silence.

"Don't be shy," the rabbi says. "I know this is hard. Who's going to go first?"

More silence.

Finally, the rabbi says, "Okay, I'm going to get this started. You, Adam, in the first row, you start us off."

Adam reluctantly gets to his feet, shrugs and says, "His brother was worse."

That joke came to mind Monday when the NCAA men's basketball committee finally got around to revealing how the new and un-improved 68-team tournament will work next March.

It could have been worse.

Of course, it could have been a lot better.

And because the NCAA is the NCAA, we still don't know all the details. One can only hope that by Selection Sunday, the committee will figure out exactly where it is going to send teams to begin the tournament.

Here are the basics:

Click here for the rest of the column: New NCAA 68-team tournament format could have been worse

One of the greatest championship games ever played; ‘The Captain’ proved me wrong this year

Walking into Augusta National this morning a number of people asked me what I thought about the national championship game on Monday. My answer was simple: “It was one of the greatest championship games ever played and if Gordon Hayward’s shot had gone in, it would have been THE greatest game and THE greatest moment in the history of college basketball.”

Yup, it was that good.

I’ve heard a few people say the game was exciting but not that well played—they say that looking at the shooting percentages. They also say that because they don’t understand basketball. Go back and look at the tape. I’m not sure there more than a half-dozen shots in the entire game that were uncontested. Every single possession was an absolute war. Throwing a simple perimeter pass was difficult. Both teams had help waiting for anyone who tried to drive the ball to the goal. There were almost no transition baskets because the teams changed ends of the court so quickly.

It is almost 36 hours since Hayward’s 45-foot shot hit the backboard and the rim and rolled off and I can still see it in the air and I can still remember thinking, ‘that has a chance.’

If it had gone in I would have been thrilled to have been there for the greatest moment in college basketball history. When it missed I was delighted for Mike Krzyzewski and all the people I know at Duke.

Let’s deal with Krzyzewski for a moment. Let’s start with this: He proved me wrong this season. I thought he made a mistake taking the Olympic job for a second time, especially at a time when Roy Williams had just won his second national championship in five years.

I forgot a lesson I learned—or thought I’d learned a long time ago—never underestimate The Captain. That’s the nickname my pal Keith Drum and put on him when he first came to Duke. Since Bob Knight liked to call himself ‘The General,’ we started calling Krzyzewski ‘The Captain,’ since that was his rank in the Army—unlike Knight who was actually a private.

Drum, who has been an NBA scout for almost 20 years, was the sports editor of The Durham Morning Herald in those days and was probably the only member of the local media who didn’t jump off the Krzyzewski bandwagon—not that there was one—when Mike went 38-47 his first three years at Duke. He was vocal enough in his belief that Krzyzewski was going to be a successful coach that Dean Smith noticed.

In 1984, after Krzyzewski’s first good team had stunned North Carolina (with Michael Jordan, Sam Perkins and Brad Daugherty among others) in the ACC semifinals, Drum and I walked down the steps in The Greensboro Coliseum into the hallway where the locker rooms were. Dean was standing outside his locker room and when he spotted us, he walked across the hall, making a beeline for Keith.

“Congratulations,” he said. “Your team played very well.”

It was a funny line since Drummer went to North Carolina. Dean was making a point about his support of Krzyzewski.

Turns out Drum had it right. Turns out I had it wrong this season. Here are the numbers: Four national championships, behind only John Wooden (10) and tied with Adolph Rupp. Eleven Final Fours—one behind Wooden and tied with Dean. Twelve ACC championships—one behind Dean. And, last but not least, 868 victories—11 behind Dean and 34 behind Knight.

Of course there are people out there who will say about 800 of those wins came because Duke gets all the calls. There are also people—just about all of whom have never met Krzyzewski or talked to him—who think he’s a bad guy, who make up things about him (like the columnist in Miami who claimed last week he ‘faked,’ his back injury in 1995) and who simply can’t stand to see him win.

Sorry folks, the guy is just good at what he does. And he’s a good man. The work he does very quietly for charities, for people who are sick, for friends—is endless. He just doesn’t make a big deal of it. For that matter, neither did Dean, who has always been that way too. That’s why I wrote a column Saturday saying they are a lot more alike than either would probably care to admit. If you want to say I’m saying these things because I went to Duke—fine. I’m saying these things because I’ve known the guy since 1977 and I know that they’re true.

He did a great job coaching this team, the key moment coming when he made Brian Zoubek a starter. Until then, this was another nice Duke team that probably would have lost in the Sweet 16. Zoubek changed everything. He gave the team an inside presence it hadn’t had since Shelden Williams graduated. He made Lance Thomas more effective because he knew he had help behind him and could be aggressive on defense. He made the Plumlee brothers better because they could play limited minutes and just buzz around when they were in the game.

As Bob Ryan said on Saturday night after Duke had dismantled West Virginia, “they have three piano players and three piano movers and they all know their roles.”

And, as Krzyzewski said, they became a very good team that did a great thing even though they didn’t have anywhere close to the pure talent many of his previous teams have had. And if Kyle Singler comes back next year—probably 50-50—they’re going to have a chance to do it again.

So will Butler if Hayward comes back. If there’s anyone left who didn’t think this was a wonderful team, they should find another sport. The only team I saw all year that played half court defense at Duke’s level was Butler. Hayward is superb; so is Shelvin Mack and the players around them all knew their roles. Matt Howard played as smart and as tough a game on Monday as I’ve ever seen.

And Brad Stevens proved he can coach with anyone. He beat Jim Boeheim, beat Frank Martin, beat Tom Izzo and missed beating Krzyzewski by two inches. He matched Krzyzewski move-for-move most the entire night. Every time out he called worked. So did his rotation, especially the way he went defense-offense the last few minutes.

It would be nuts for him to leave Butler for any second tier job in a BCS conference. His next job should be one of the BIG ones: Krzyzewski isn’t going to coach forever; neither will Roy Williams or Ben Howland and you never know when someone at a big school might be tempted by the NBA. (Forget The Captain to the Nets. He’d never coach a game if he even thought about it because his wife Mickie would kill him first). That’s where Stevens belongs. Butler right now is a better job than any of those other jobs anyway.

The only sad thing about Monday Night, especially one like this one, is that someone loses and has to live with the ‘what-ifs,’ the rest of their lives. To be honest, the Butler kids deserve better than that because they gave us memories we’ll all keep with us for a long, long time.

You see, Monday Night in college basketball is about forever. And this one was one worth savoring for at least that long.

******

Quick note on the ‘new,’ Tiger Woods. He’s not playing in the par-3 tournament at Augusta today, which is by far the most fan friendly event of the week. The excuse from his camp is that he hasn’t done it for years and if he did and played poorly tomorrow someone would say (not me for the record) that it was because he’d played the par-3. He should have just played. He should have auctioned off caddying for him and given the money to a charity of the winner’s choice—NOT his own foundation.

But no, he’s not doing that. He IS, I’m told, signing a lot more autographs than in the past. Good for him. But he should have played in the par-3.

For The Washington Post - 'A basketball tournament only the NCAA would love'

INDIANAPOLIS - Arguably, there has never been a better NCAA men's basketball tournament than the one that ends tonight. From the very first games on the very first day there was one upset after another, one remarkable finish piling on another.

The championship game will be straight from "Hoosiers," the 1986 film based on the 1954 Indiana state championship won by tiny Milan High School over powerful Muncie Central. One finalist on Monday night in (naturally) Indianapolis is Butler. The other is Duke.

Duke is college basketball royalty, having competed in 15 Final Fours and winning three national championships. Butler had never been in the Final Four and came -- like Milan -- from virtual anonymity to compete for the championship. As luck would have it, Butler plays its home games on its campus at Hinkle Fieldhouse, which is six miles from the massive domed stadium where the Final Four was played but, more important, is the place where Milan won its title and where the movie was filmed.

In short, this NCAA Tournament is about as close to a perfect sporting event as happens in the jock pantheon.
So why is it almost certain that the NCAA will blow up a system that has worked so well for 25 years and completely change the landscape of college basketball?

Click here for the rest of the column - A basketball tournament only the NCAA would love

Yesterday’s annual NCAA press conference with Greg Shaheen

I swear to God when I walked into the NCAA’s annual press conference yesterday I had no intention of asking any questions or, for that matter, staying very long. The only reason I even wandered in was that the NCAA sort of trapped us by putting an hour break into the schedule between the time the players and coaches from Butler were available to talk and the time the players and coaches from Duke showed up.

So, if anyone from the NCAA was unhappy with what took place, they should blame themselves. Schedule the teams one after another the way you should and you won’t have me hanging around while you publicly congratulate yourselves on all the great work you’re doing for ‘student-athletes.’

What happened was this: Greg Shaheen, who is the NCAA vice president in charge of—for all intents and purposes—this basketball tournament, began outlining how a 96 team field would work. We all know the tournament is going to 96 teams, the only question is if they’ll make the leap all at once next year—that’s my guess—or ease into it over a two or three year period.

Shaheen knows that cat is out of the bag. Back in January when I wrote that it was a done deal and said that ESPN was going to put so many Disney Dollars on the table that the NCAA wouldn’t be able to resist, he wrote me an angry e-mail, not denying the expansion, but that I had implied that CBS wasn’t being treated fairly in the negotiation process. Now that CBS has partnered with Turner, the NCAA is bound to be very nice to them since the worst they can do is get into a bidding war with ESPN and drive the price higher—regardless of who ends up with the rights.

As Shaheen was describing how a 96 team tournament would play out in terms of schedule he made one completely ridiculous statement: that ‘student-athletes,’ would not miss any more class time under the new format than they already do now. He carefully outlined how the first week would work, emphasizing the fact that while the 64 non-bye teams would arrive at sites at the same time as in the past, the 32 bye teams could arrive a day or two later.

Fine. Let’s not even get into the fact that the first week of the tournament is often spring break for a majority of schools. Let’s just give the NCAA that one.

Then, having made that point a couple times, Shaheen simply stopped. He said nothing about the second week, which is when the extra round of games will have to be played. Since the round of 64 will now be played on Saturday-Sunday, the round of 32 has to be played the first half of the next week to get to the Sweet 16. Shaheen acted as if that round didn’t exist.

I couldn’t resist. I asked for the microphone—at NCAA press conferences you have to ask for a mike and for reasons I’ve never understood, “identify,” yourself before asking a question. I once identified myself as Bob Woodward and no one batted an eye.

So, I asked Greg exactly when the round of 32 would be played. He said most likely on Tuesday-Wednesday. That would mean the winners would play regionals on Thursday-Friday, meaning that teams that played on the weekend and then played the round of 32 and then the 16s would miss an entire week of school.

When I made that point, Greg referred back to the first week. I told him I wasn’t asking about the first week. He AGAIN started talking about the first week. I finally said something like, “well you just aren’t going to answer the question about the second week are you?”

He then claimed something about not understanding the ‘nuance,’ of my question. I could have said, “Oh come on Greg, you’re a smart guy, you get the question you just don’t want to answer it in this forum; don’t want it on the record that OF COURSE everyone will miss a full week of class—in addition to whatever they miss the first week and the four days the two teams in the championship game miss this weekend (Thursday, Friday, Monday, Tuesday).”

Afterwards, no longer at the podium, Shaheen admitted they’d miss the entire week although he claimed, “some teams,” could go home between their weekend game and their round of 32 game. Quick quiz: How many coaches do you think will play a game on Saturday night, fly home, maybe have the kids go to class Monday and then fly back to play Tuesday? How about none.

What bothered me about it, what caused me to jump in, were two factors: One, Shaheen was simply trying to bulldoze past the fact that there will be MORE missed class during a press conference in which the NCAA had been bragging about improved graduation rates. (A story for another day). Second, here’s an organization that runs screaming from the room whenever a football playoff is brought up because it doesn’t want to take on the BCS Presidents or the bowl lobby and then claims it is worried about MISSED CLASS TIME for football players (who would miss almost zero class time with a football playoff) and it is shrugging off MORE missed class time for basketball players as no big deal.

“Wouldn’t be that many teams affected,” Shaheen said later.

So apparently it is okay as long as the ‘student-athletes,’ from 16 schools are affected but not okay if ‘student-athletes,’ from eight schools are affected—though almost not at all—in football.

My point in asking the questions I asked wasn’t to embarrass Shaheen. I like him. He’s very bright but he is also one of those administrators who thinks if he says it then it must be so. Maybe that comes from hanging around the basketball committee for so long. When someone asked Dan Guerrero, the UCLA AD who is the committee chairman this year if he was concerned about how a 96 team field would affect attendance at the Pac-10 Tournament which already doesn’t draw very well, Guerrero said, “That’s not something we’ve addressed as a conference yet.”

Honestly, I think if you asked Guerrero where the sun’s going to rise tomorrow he would tell you that the committee had studied a lot of options: east, west, north and south and all were very worthy of hosting sunrise.

I have to admit I was a little surprised at the reaction to my exchange with Shaheen. I sometimes forget how fast information goes out on the internet and on TV these days. It’s a sign of age. But the reaction was swift and I guess what it shows is that a lot of people are pretty fed up with the NCAA’s constant filibustering on any real question.

This morning I presented Jim Boeheim with the US Basketball Writers Coach-of-the-Year Award at a breakfast. I noticed that a lot of the committee members were in the room when I got up to the podium. I was tempted to say that the USBWA had decided to expand breakfast to include lunch next year but we believed it wouldn’t cost those who came any extra money because, well, because we said so.

I decided to pass on the line and make fun of Boeheim instead, knowing he was going to nail me when it was his turn. (He did—he said the only thing that could ruin being named coach-of-the-year was having me present the award. Then he said he hadn’t worn a tie because he didn’t think he needed one with a bunch of writers. I took my tie off and gave it to him. Without missing a beat he pretended to look at the label and said, “JC Penney.” He was very funny).

One thing I like about coaches like Boeheim is that they don’t take themselves too seriously most of the time. Then again, he was the first guy to suggest expanding the tournament. All of which just proves that no one's perfect.

Washington Post column on men's basketball tournament expansion

INDIANAPOLIS - If there was any doubt about the NCAA's intention to expand the men's basketball tournament to 96 teams, it went away on Thursday afternoon.

That's not to say anyone gave any straight answers during the NCAA's annual Final Four news conference, which isn't really a news conference but rather a chance for the suits to come in and tell everyone that all is right with their world.

They made sure everyone knew that more "student-athletes" are graduating -- that's counting all 347 Division I programs, many of whom have no chance to compete on the basketball court, but let's not go there. They also reminded everyone that the selection committee (again) did a fabulous job putting together the tournament, even if it insists that everything it does be kept top secret.

But that was all just the warmup act for Greg Shaheen, who is an NCAA vice president but also, far more importantly, the guy steering the expansion ship from inside NCAA headquarters. Shaheen is a bright, capable guy who has done a lot of good things since the late Myles Brand brought him to the NCAA as his right-hand man six years ago.

His assignment Thursday was to explain how the 96-team field will work and then try to convince people that no decisions have been made. "This could all be a discussion about nothing," he said at one point.
Right. And coaches get fired for not graduating enough players.

Here is how the tournament will play out in case you haven't, like the NCAA, been "studying models."

Click here for the rest of the column: On men's basketball tournament expansion, NCAA talks a big game

Updated - This week's radio segments (The Sports Reporters, The Gas Man, Tony Kornheiser Show)

On Wednesday I joined The Sports Reporters' Steve Czaban and Andy Pollin in the normal timeslot (5:25 ET on Wednesday's). Click the permalink, then the link below, to listen to the segment that takes a look at Tiger Woods' upcoming press conference, this weekends Final Four, and the REAL meaning of Cinderella.

Click here to listen to the segment: The Sports Reporters

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I also joined The Gas Man in my normal Wednesday evening slot (8:25 pm PT).  This week our segment took a long look at the great NCAA Tournament along with some great stories of the state of Indiana and its great basketball fans.

Click here to listen to the segment: The Gas Man

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And once again on Thursday, I joined Tony Kornheiser's newest The Tony Kornheiser Show in my normal slot at 11:05 am ET.  This week it was the normal Tony, and we spent much of the time discussing this weekend's Final Four.

Click here to listen to the segment (starts within the 1st minute): Tony Kornheiser Show

Returning to Indiana always puts a smile on my face; A look back at 'A Season on the Brink'

ON THE ROAD TO INDIANA—Okay, about to be on the road. I’m not so crazy that I’d try to write while driving. I have enough trouble with it while sitting in a chair.

I always enjoy going back (home again) to Indiana. It brings back lots of fond memories. You see, regardless of what Bob Knight thought about ‘Season on the Brink,’—we have a civil, ‘hi, how’s it going,’ relationship these days for those who wonder—I made a lot of good friends while doing the book and still enjoy visiting there because most people I encounter could not be nicer. The reaction I have gotten through the years from most Indiana fans is, “gee, why was Coach Knight so upset, it isn’t as if it was a surprise to anyone that he uses profanity.”

You have to understand Knight—and I’m not claiming I do even though I was with him for 14 to 16 hours a day for most of six months—to figure out the answer to that question. I knew when I left Bloomington that Bob was going to find something not to like in the book. That’s the way he is. I never for a second expected him to call me when I sent him an advance copy and say, “Wow John, this is great, you really captured what it’s like to be inside the program.”

That’s just not who he is. On the night Indiana won the national championship in 1976, finishing the season undefeated (the last team to do that) Knight walked out of The Philadelphia Spectrum with a friend who was practically jumping up and down with excitement.

“You did it,” he said. “You won the national championship!”

This was Knight’s response: “Shoulda been two.”

He was still pouting because his 1975 team, which was probably better than the 1976 team had lost to Kentucky in the regional final after Scott May broke his arm and came back to play at far less than 100 percent.

All that said, when Royce Waltman, then an Indiana assistant called me and said, “Coach is angry because you left his profanity in the book,” my first reaction was, “Okay, now tell me what he’s really angry about.”

I honestly thought Royce was kidding or that Knight had said something like, “Do I really say f---- that often?”

Knight is great at denial. In fact, during the season I was there, he got into a big argument one night with a pal named Bob Murrey because he asked Bob to assess how he was doing at controlling his temper. When Murrey said he was doing okay, but not great, Knight got angry and insisted that Murrey was wrong that he was doing a GREAT job of controlling his temper.

Royce said he was completely serious that Knight thought I had agreed to leave his profanity out of the book. In fact, I vividly remember discussing the issue one night with Bob while we ate dinner at Chili’s, one of his favorite restaurants. He’d been especially uptight in practice that day and had called one player a word that women find especially offensive 14 times during one sequence. That’s an exact number. I counted when I listened to the tape.

I jokingly commented that night that the book might be the first sports book that had to be wrapped in brown paper with a warning for parents. Bob laughed and said something like, “Yeah I know, but you aren’t going to leave all my profanity in are you?”

My exact answer was this: “No Bob I’m not. I want the book to be shorter than War and Peace. But you understand that writing a book about you without the word f--- would be like writing a book about you without the word basketball.”

He said, “I understand that.”

But he didn’t understand nine months later. Looking back, I believe he honestly thought I had said I’d leave out his profanity. That’s another thing about Knight: as good as his memory is on some things (it isn’t nearly as good as he would have you believe it is) he often skews the past in his mind.

I remember early that season when Waltman and another assistant, Julio Salazar, had driven to South Bend to tape the local telecast of Notre Dame’s game on a Saturday afternoon—yup, in those days you had to dostuff like that—and Knight wanted it broken down (offense, defense, certain plays and players) that night. Waltman told Knight that Salazar was working on it but it would be the next morning before it was ready.

A few hours later (after Indiana had played that night) Knight demanded to know where the tape was that Waltman had promised he would have right after the game.

Knight THOUGHT Waltman had said he’d have it after the game because that’s what he wanted. There are lots of other examples that anyone who has spent time with Knight can recite for you.

But enough on Knight. As I’ve often said, I will always be grateful to him for giving me the access that allowed me to write ‘Season.’ The book changed my life and allowed me to pick and choose my book topics from that day forward.

Plus, I did make a lot of friends that year, including the players and the coaches and a lot of people I met at IU and around the state. I’m still friends with Bob’s son Pat (who was 15 that year and still jokingly refers to me as his, ‘former babysitter,’ since I picked him up at school quite a bit) and the school, the town and the whole state will always have a warm spot in my heart.

I have one memory that stays with me—among many—perhaps above all the others. After Indiana lost in the NCAA Tournament that year to Cleveland State in Syracuse I walked from the locker room to the interview room with Knight who was, to say the least, mad at the world. After he finished with the media, he headed straight to the bus having left orders that his players were to clear out of the locker room immediately to fly home.

I wasn’t going back to Bloomington that night because I had to stay to cover Navy that evening (David Robinson) for The Washington Post. I walked back to the locker room where I was accosted by a security guard who told me not only could I not go in the locker room I couldn’t be in the hallway. The guy saw my media credentials and started literally shoving me from the door.

As luck would have it, Brian Sloan, who was a redshirt that year but would go on to be very solid player, was coming out of the locker room at that moment. Seeing what was happening, he came over, put his hand on the guy’s shoulder and said, “leave him alone, he’s with us.”

The guard—stunned—backed off instantly. I shook hands with Brian, thanked him and went into the locker room to see everyone who was still there—I didn’t know if I’d see a lot of them when I got back to Bloomington since the season was over—and, in some cases, say goodbye.

I’ve never forgotten Brian Sloan for doing that. Even now, 24 years later, it puts a smile on my face. Just as returning to Indiana always puts a smile on my face.

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Two quick notes: To those of you who wrote in to ‘correct,’ my Post column in which I said that, according to the NCAA, John Calipari has never coached in a Final Four game: I was making a point. Of course I know about U-Mass in ’96 and Memphis in ’08—I WAS THERE. But when your appearance is ‘vacated,’ by the NCAA it never happened as far as they are concerned…

And: There was a question yesterday from a poster and we’ve had quite a few e-mails about the publication of my next book: It will officially be published on May 12th and the title is: “Moment of Glory—The Year Unknowns Ruled The Majors.” It focuses on 2003 when among the major champions (and runners-up) only Jim Furyk (U.S. Open) had ever come close to contending in a major—and he had never won one. It is about how one’s life changes radically after achieving sudden fame or just missing that moment. I really enjoyed doing it because I found the guys involved had great stories to tell. I believe it can be pre-ordered at Amazon right now. Thanks to all those who asked.

Final Four weekend is still a special time; My favorite memories of past weekends – Wooden, Valvano, Manning and more

Late tomorrow night I will arrive in Indianapolis for The Final Four. This will be sixth time The Final Four has been played in Indy and the third different venue it has been played in there. In 1980, which was my second Final Four but my first as the lead writer for The Washington Post—in 1978 I was the newspaper’s night police reporter and George Solomon sent me to St. Louis to write sidebars because I’d covered college hoops in my free time during the season—the games were played in Market Square Arena, which is now long gone.

By the time The Final Four returned in 1991, the games were being played in The Hoosier Dome. Now THAT building is gone and they will play in Lukas Oil Stadium, which I haven’t seen yet but looks absolutely huge on television.

Market Square seated maybe 16,000 people. It was a really nice basketball arena and your sense was that everyone who came to The Final Four was there because they loved basketball. That changed years ago, sort of like The Super Bowl. Now a lot of people are there just to be there and the NCAA is insistent on getting 70,000 people into the dome even though it means playing on a raised court in the middle of the football field.

Look closely at your TV set on Saturday night and you will see Jim Nantz, Clark Kellogg and their statistician sitting on raised chairs so that they have a normal view of the court. The two head coaches will be sitting on little stools up on the court—or standing—while everyone on their benches sits below court level looking straight at the feet of those who are playing.

The worst seats in the building belong to the CBS PR people who get to sit directly behind Nantz and Kellogg and can’t see a thing. Everyone else just comes out of there with a strained neck.

The NCAA went to this set-up last year in Detroit and it isn’t going away because it means about 20,000 more tickets it can sell even if most of the seats are in the next county. The REALLY rich fans will be fine. Everyone else will have a better view by watching the message boards—or whatever they call them these days. Of course the NCAA will try to spin this to tell the world they’re doing this for, ‘the student-athletes.’

Here’s an idea for you to pass the time if you’re at home watching on TV this weekend: If you watch the press conferences count how many times the moderator says, ‘student-athletes.’ Last week in Syracuse at one point the moderator said it three times in one sentence. That, I believe, is a new record. I’ve said to different guys, “why not just call them players—what’s WRONG with being a player?” They all shake their heads, look around and say, “I’d get in trouble for that.”

I believe them. Big brother NCAA is always watching.

As with all old people, I find it hard to believe that my first Final Four was 32 years ago. It was a thrill to go then and, you know what, it is still a thrill. I’m jaded and cynical and I hate how late the games start—in the good old days they actually played on Saturday AFTERNOON—and how long they take once they start.

But I still get a kick out of seeing the entire basketball community in the same place for a few days. That’s not to say there aren’t members of the community who shouldn’t be in jail or something close to it. I have a basic theory: If you see a guy standing in the lobby of the coach’s hotel on a cell phone, he’s probably up to no good. If a guy comes up and acts like he’s your best friend and gives you a 70s soul shake run for your life. And if a coach you haven’t heard from for years who is out of work wants to buy you a beer, buy HIM the beer and get out of Dodge because he’s going to ask you to help him get a job.

For the most part though, it’s fun. People stand around the lobby and tell old stories. Old enemies sometimes hang out together laughing and joking. I remember one year bumping into John Chaney and John Calipari who were absolutely cracking one another up. This was not that many years after Chaney burst into a Calipari press conference at U-Mass wanting to fight him on the spot. (I would have bet on Chaney in an instant in that one).

Star coaches don’t like coming to The Final Four without their teams these days. Bob Knight only comes now because ESPN pays him. Prior to that he only came on occasion. Same with Mike Krzyzewski, although he’ll be there this weekend since he gets to bring his team along.

In the old days, they all went. I still remember seeing Dean Smith on the rent-a-car line in Seattle in 1984. “You need a car for the week?” I asked.

Dean shrugged. “I didn’t think I did,” he said. “I thought I’d be coming with my team.”

That was the year Indiana upset North Carolina when the Tar Heels had Michael Jordan, Sam Perkins, Kenny Smith, Brad Daugherty and Joe Wolf on the team.

Dean always went. John Wooden always went, even after he retired. I know I’ve told this story often but it bears repeating. At that same Seattle Final Four in 1984, Coach Wooden was there with his wife Nell, who was very sick and in a wheelchair. One night, after they’d spent time in the coach’s lobby, they said their goodnights and Coach Wooden began wheeling his wife across the lobby to the elevators. It was late and relatively quiet though the place was still crowded. Someone spotted them and just began to clap. Others picked up on it. By the time they reached the elevator bank everyone in the lobby was clapping for the Woodens.

That’s probably my favorite Final Four memory, right up there in a different way with N.C. State beating Houston; Villanova beating Georgetown; Kansas beating Oklahoma; Duke beating Vegas and George Mason just being there.

Actually the games are only part of The Final Four for me. Seeing lots of old friends, hanging out in the media hospitality room late at night with the other old guys like Hoops Weiss and Bob Ryan and Malcolm Moran is still great fun. A lot of the stories begin with, “remember back in …”

I guess I should consider myself lucky that I can still remember most of the stories. I DO remember Jim Valvano running in circles looking for someone to hug and the look on Danny Manning’s face when he pulled down the last rebound—among other things.

The Final Four isn’t the same by any stretch of the imagination. But it’s still The Final Four and I’m lucky I still get the chance to go.