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Saturday, March 24, 2007
Afflalo assumes leadership role for UCLA
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terence Moore
San Jose, Calif. — You had tradition against tradition Saturday night at HP Pavilion, where there was enough college basketball history to spread from here to John Wooden’s house to James Naismith’s grave. That was significant only until the opening tipoff. Then it became UCLA against Kansas, with the opportunity for one of them to become the team of now along the way to the Final Four.
That team wasn’t Kansas, an impressive bunch, but one without something that UCLA clearly had.
A main guy.
While UCLA had Arron Afflalo again and again when the Bruins needed him most, Kansas tried to have Brandon Rush, the Jayhawks’ gifted sophomore. Instead, he joined the rest of his teammates in a desperate search for a leader down the stretch that they didn’t have.
The result was an Afflalo-led explosion midway through the second half that produced a 68-55 victory for UCLA and a reality for Kansas: You still need leadership with talent. Despite the Jayhawks’ overwhelming number of McDonald’s All-Americans, they nevertheless played like what they are, and that is a collection of freshmen and sophomores.
“We played young when we got behind,” said Kansas coach Bill Self, delivering his version of saying that the Jayhawks hadn’t anything close to a main guy.
As a result, Kansas was clueless against a team with more than a few players back from a group that reached last year’s championship game. Those UCLA returnees begin and end with Afflalo, a first-time All-America guard, who scored 15 of his 24 points in the second half. He also willed the Bruins to a record 17th trip to the Final Four.
“He’s been our leader, and we go to him in big games, and he was feeling it today” said UCLA’s Josh Shipp, with Afflalo squirming nearby.
We’re talking about a humble leader. So despite Afflalo’s splendid ways throughout the evening, which included a 3-pointer at the end of the shot clock and another while falling awkwardly toward his left, he deflected credit.
“You know, it really wasn’t me individually. It was the whole mind-set of our entire team,” Afflalo said. “I was just fortunate enough to make the jump shots tonight, but we went into the locker room [at halftime] talking about playing for 40 minutes, playing together, and we just kept that aggressive nature, and it proved to be effective for us.”
Twenty minutes. That’s all that separated the Bruins from Atlanta after they surged near the end of first half for a 35-31 advantage. Afflalo was the catalyst to it all, and such also was the case when he began the second half with a fastbreak layup after a rousing block by Luc Richard Mbah a Moute and that 3-pointer near the end of the shot clock. Before long, UCLA was rolling at least toward the outskirts of Douglas County with an 11-point lead (46-35), and Kansas was stumbling back toward Lawrence.
The Jayhawks were in desperate need of something.
Rush, to be exact. He was fine at the start for the Jayhawks by doing all sorts of things to make Afflalo look ordinary by comparison. When Rush wasn’t scoring from up close or from afar, he was blocking shots. In contrast, Afflalo sort of disappeared for a while.
Then Afflalo surfaced near the end of the first half. With UCLA shooting away Kansas’ momentum that became a 29-23 lead inside the final five minutes before intermission, Afflalo scored from the corner and then from the lane. More impressive, he dribbled patiently at the top of the key with the clock ticking and ticking before shoveling to Shipp for a 3-pointer and that 35-31 lead for the Bruins.
That’s when Rush vanished for the rest of the evening. He scored just seven of his 18 points in the second half, and many of those seven came long after UCLA unofficially had completed its trip from Douglas County to the Georgia Dome.
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Cinderella slippers may fit Ducks
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
St. Louis — This is what passes for Cinderella in the Big Dance of 2007: The tournament champion of the league that has won more national basketball titles than any other; a team that has been in the Top 25 since December; a No. 3 seed that has beaten Georgetown, UCLA, Washington State and Southern Cal. That said, the Oregon Ducks are the lowest seed left in the tournament, so don’t they feel a bit like this year’s George Mason?
Uh, no.
“A lot of people haven’t seen us play,” said Bryce Taylor, one of Oregon’s four starting guards, “but we’ve had some big wins. We kind of take the underdog role personally. We use it as extra motivation.”
George Mason embraced its sleeper status to the max last year, its pep band adding “All I Need Is Miracle” and “Livin’ On A Prayer” to its repertoire. The Ducks bristle because more folks haven’t paid attention. Taylor again: “West Coast teams get overlooked or underrated.” That isn’t true if you’re UCLA, but it is if you’re a Duck.
Said Tajuan Porter, the smallest of the four guards and a native of Detroit: “I didn’t even know Oregon was a state until Malik [Hairston, his high school teammate] went there.”
Said Ernie Kent, the Oregon alum who coaches the Ducks: “Sometimes it’s hard to sell the rain [precipitation is a fact of everyday Northwest life] to someone who comes from California.”
Just because Oregon seems slightly rustic doesn’t mean it’s a mid-major. It’s a major major. Its enrollment is 20,333. It won the first NCAA basketball title in 1939. Its athletics programs are heavily funded by Nike, which rules the world. Alumnus Phil Knight, Nike’s founder, is a quacking Duck fan, and he’s here for the Midwest Regional. “He’s no different from any other booster at Michigan or UCLA,” Kent said. “But he hasn’t called a play yet, and I don’t know if I’d let him.”
Oregon plays Florida today, and these Gators have become a brand name to rival Nike. Florida has a small forward who’s 6-foot-9. Oregon’s leading scorer against UNLV on Friday was Porter, who’s 5-6 and who had 33 astonishing points. “The ultimate challenge,” Kent called his team’s date with the big and swift Gators, but any team that has beaten the people Oregon has — the Ducks led Southern Cal, which nearly beat North Carolina, by 40 points 15 days ago in the Pac-10 tournament final — cannot plead poverty.
The Ducks can play. They just play somewhat differently. They resemble Villanova of a year ago — lots of guards, tons of quickness, barrels of 3-pointers — but it’s worth noting that Florida handled Villanova rather easily in this round. “I’m definitely tempted to watch [the tape of that game],” said Kent, who admitted: “What Villanova did definitely influenced us.”
It’s a funny space the Ducks occupy: They’re too accomplished to be the tournament darling but too obscure to be a full-blown power. Kent again: “There are a lot of big names sitting center stage this weekend, and our name is not as big.”
Maybe that will change today. Maybe the watching world will get a load of this brace of Ducks and decide that Porter is the cutest thing since Spud Webb. “Everybody loves to cheer for the little guy,” Kent said, and Porter is definitely little. His size, or the lack thereof, prevented bigger (pun intended) schools from recruiting him, and even his fellow Ducks weren’t sure what they were getting.
They soon learned. Said Aaron Brooks, the relatively massive (he’s 6-foot) point guard and the team’s best player: “I had to guard the little dude. He put on a couple of moves that kind of shook me.”
Can the Ducks pull the moves that will shock the defending champs? Probably not. But it should be fun to watch them try. They really don’t qualify as Cinderella, but you never know. Maybe mighty Nike is about to put the swoosh on a line of glass slippers.
Permalink | Comments (4) | Categories: Final Four, Mark Bradley
Dynasties are a dying breed
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
East Rutherford, N.J. — There was the snapshot of what college basketball is today: a coach, sitting at the dais with the core of his team — three freshmen and two sophomores.
A decade ago, we would think: dynasty.
Today we wonder, “Who leaves?”
Brandan Wright, a freshman, has lottery pick stamped on his forehead. Ty Lawson, another freshman, has the speed at point guard to make up for his lack of NBA size. Tyler Hansbrough, a sophomore, would benefit from another year in college, but since when did that stop anybody?
“We could be like Florida if everybody stuck around,” Lawson said. “We could have like two or three championship runs.”
North Carolina, one step from another Final Four, faces Georgetown in today’s East Regional final. Take the snapshot, because logic dictates the Tar Heels won’t stay together.
This is a team with seemingly limitless athletic ability and potential, as evidenced in Friday’s semis when it went on an 18-0 run in 6 1/2 minutes and, after falling behind Southern Cal by 16 points, outscored the Trojans 41-15 to finish the game in a 74-64 win.
That has been a trait of the Heels this season: playing hard when they need to. But the comeback illustrated the upside of this team, an upside that may never fully be reached.
Carolina players realize this might be their one and only run together, although they are reticent to talk about it because it opens the door to questions about the NBA.
“I thought about that at halftime [Friday night],” Lawson said. “This is our chance at the national championship. This is our chance at the run. If we lost the game, our chance would’ve been gone.
“Maybe guys will leave. Maybe they won’t. But I don’t want to take that chance. I don’t want to wait and see what happens next year.”
Wright is a fleet, 6-foot-9 forward with a wingspan that crosses state borders. He also can sense questions about his future before they leave a reporter’s mouth, as he did Saturday when he said, “I’m just worried about trying to win games and helping this team get to Atlanta.”
But when asked how good he believed Carolina could be if the team stayed together, Wright said: “Great. Really great. I mean, we’re pretty good right now.
“Guys have different reasons for what they do, and I’m not the type of guy who’s going to get into people’s business for the decisions they make. But it would be nice to see a team stick together for a while, just to see what it could do.”
Every school goes through this, although North Carolina is worse than most. Two years ago, the Tar Heels won the national championship but lost their top seven scorers off that team — and four were underclassmen.
Coach Roy Williams has learned to trust this team, despite its youth. An example came when Southern Cal jumped ahead 49-33 early in the second half, and Williams … did … nothing.
“We’re down 16 points in the second half and we look over at Coach Williams and he’s not calling a timeout,” sophomore Marcus Ginyard said. “He’s just telling us to get the ball up the floor and continue to play. We feel the confidence the coach has in us.”
Williams has a chance to go to his second Final Four in three seasons. It helps that he can stuff his roster with high school All-Americans every year. But surviving roster churns, wayward freshmen and players distracted by impending NBA paydays is no easy feat.
As he sat on stage, Williams looked to his left and said: “We have five guys up here, all freshmen and sophomores. To be able to accomplish this would have been unheard of several years ago. I can assure you I don’t take it for granted. Before I go to bed, I sit back and I say, ‘Thank you, thank you, thank you.’ They make me look good, and I hope they continue doing it.”
He meant in this tournament. He knows it would be foolish to assume anything beyond that.
Permalink | Comments (2) | Categories: Final Four, Jeff Schultz
Hoyas travel around obstacle
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
East Rutherford, N.J. — Georgetown should have a real simple game plan in the NCAA tournament: Avoid low-seeded teams that start with “V.”
Villanova.
Vanderbilt.
A community college in Vicksburg.
Just say no. Or NIT.
“We’re just glad, and we feel fortunate, that we won,” coach John Thompson III said Friday night. “That’s about all I’ve got to say.” Yes, take the win and run to Sunday.
Georgetown was back in a familiar position Friday as a high tournament seed, trying to reach its first Final Four since 1985. That year, the Hoyas (a No. 1 seed) lost to Villanova (No. 8) in the championship game, regarded as one of the greatest upsets in sports history.
Had the Hoyas lost to sixth-seeded Vanderbilt on Friday, it would not have ranked with that gut shot. But when you go into a game with a famous son as coach (Thompson) and a famous son as a player (Patrick Ewing Jr.) and just a seeming advantage in the aura department — Georgetown vs. Vanderbilt — you expect more than this.
You expect more than needing the benefit of two calls down the stretch to escape with a 66-65 win over Vanderbilt to reach Sunday’s East Regional final.
But, um, nobody’s complaining.
“Traveled? No,” forward Jeff Green said with a slight smile after throwing in a desperation bank shot with about two seconds left to give the Hoyas their final lead. “There were a lot of guys down there. I probably got pushed. The play was good, and that’s all I can say. We won.”
Those Georgetown teams in the 1980s, they made it look a lot easier (the Villanova game notwithstanding) than the Hoyas did against Vandy.
They certainly had looked the part coming into Friday. They had won 17 of their past 18, this following consecutive midseason losses to Pittsburgh and Villanova (of course). In this tournament, they had pounded Belmont and beat Boston College.
But the spirits that occupied their bodies Friday were not those of a team coached by the elder John Thompson (who was courtside doing radio commentary, probably with a headache).
Georgetown took a 4-0 lead. Then it went 6 1/2 minutes without a field goal. By then, Vanderbilt had led 18-6. The Commodores led by as many as 13 points (27-14) and settled for a halftime lead of eight (32-24).
The Hoyas woke up the Big East echos in the second half. When Green hit a jumper six minutes into the half, it gave his team its first lead, at 39-38, since 5-4. But the rest of the half evolved into a series of lead changes. With four minutes left, Georgetown center Roy Hibbert fouled out, and a pair of free throws by Derrick Byars gave Vandy a 60-57 lead.
Said the Commodores’ Dan Cage: “When there’s four minutes left and the game’s within five points either way, honestly, call it arrogance, but we think we’ve got the game won.”
They might have. But the Hoyas got a bit of help. Green’s three-point play tied it at 60-all. With two minutes left, Georgetown guard Jessie Sapp appeared to both palm the ball and travel on a drive to the hoop. But neither was called and Sapp layed it in.
The Commodores — who committed only five turnovers but were outrebounded 40-26 — jumped back ahead on free throws, 65-64. But after a timeout with 14 seconds left, the Hoyas got the ball into Green, whose first option was to feed Ewing on the backdoor. But when Ewing was covered, Green backed in, fumbled the dribble, picked it up and shuffled both feet (confirmed by TV replays) before falling back and banking it in against two defenders.
Vanderbilt coach Kevin Stallings took a pass on criticizing officials. “I haven’t seen the replay — I don’t care to,” he said. “He made a great shot. The officials didn’t see anything, so there must have not been anything.”
Take it and run Georgetown. And the good news is, all the “V” schools are gone from the tournament.
Permalink | Comments (5) | Categories: Final Four, Jeff Schultz
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