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Thursday, March 29, 2007
Bluegrass intrusion allowed by Donovan
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
Billy Donovan says he doesn’t carry his cellphone on the road. He says he hands it to his secretary, who screens all calls. Donovan says this frees him to go from watching film to conducting practice without being troubled by the outside world. That’s what he says.
Reality, at least this weekend’s version of it, might be rather different. Donovan has to know he’s the central figure in this Final Four for two divergent and possible divisive reasons: He coaches the team that’s trying win consecutive titles, and he’s the leading candidate to coach an even higher-profile program next season.
If he’s lucky, Florida will win again and he’ll be able to say his personal status had no impact on his team. But say Florida loses. Will Donovan spend the rest of his life wondering if he was the distraction that kept the best team he’ll ever coach from fulfilling its manifest destiny?
Asked on a conference call Wednesday if he would mention Kentucky to his players, Donovan said, “There’s nothing more to address. I’ve already addressed it.”
March Madness in Atlanta:
Check out the AJC’s Final Four pageActually, what he has done is to act as if he has no say in anything — from last weekend: “That has nothing to do with me; it has everything to do with Kentucky. … I’m not the decision maker in the process” — but that’s just not true. If he’d decided he wasn’t interested in the Wildcats, the way Bobby Cremins did back in 1985, that’d be the end of it. But Donovan didn’t say those words, and by not saying them he has made it seem as if he’s willing to listen.
Can we fault him for that? No, because it’s the American way to want to make scads more money. But also yes, because his Gators are in a position no team has occupied in 15 years.
Three of them — Joakim Noah, Al Horford and Corey Brewer — famously deferred personal gain for the commonweal. Would it have killed Donovan to say, “Ordinarily I’d be flattered if Kentucky came calling, but this just isn’t the time for me to be thinking about anything but this team and therefore I’m removing my name from consideration”? He keeps telling his guys to live for the moment. Is he living for the moment by letting his name linger in the air, by allowing the rumor-mongerers in the Bluegrass to run amok?
Example: My brother called from Maysville, Ky., on Tuesday, saying Lexington TV was reporting that Donovan was coming to Kentucky. Turned out one station had seized on a rumor posted on The Cats’ Pause message board and stated it as fact. (Full disclosure: I once worked for — and was fired from — The Cats’ Pause.)
No, Donovan has no control over what somebody in Lexington chooses to float on the Internet. But if he’d said, “Sorry, not interested,” the postings would be about Rick Barnes or Tom Crean. As it is, Donovan-to-Kentucky will hang over this Final Four the way Roy-Williams-to-North-Carolina hung over the 2003 edition, and that one didn’t end so sweetly for the coach and his men.
The Jayhawks beat Marquette (coached by Crean, who has done little since) by 33 points in the semi, but they fell behind Syracuse by 18 and yielded a record 53 first-half points in the title game. They still might have won but for missing 18 of 30 free throws. Were they distracted or simply outplayed? We’ll never know, and neither will Ol’ Roy, who, when pressed by CBS about the Carolina job afterward, loosed a malodorous word on live television. (Earlier he had bristled when asked about the Tar Heels on the pre-Final Four conference call.)
Williams eventually got his championship at Carolina, but those Kansas players — Kirk Hinrich and Nick Collison and Keith Langford — never did. No matter where Donovan coaches in the years ahead, he’ll have more chances to win it all. These remarkably selfless Gators have only one shot to do their double. They’re chasing history. As the last leg of their long slog approaches, might one or two among them be wondering: What’s our coach chasing?
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Today’s Final Four countown
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
10: Yeah, I’m getting a little tired of counting down, too. My kingdom for a tipoff. I mean, this is sort of like waiting for “Anna Nicole: The Lost Physics Exams,” or the NCAA giving the nod to academics over athletics. (Hey, transition!)
9: Had to admire NCAA President Myles Brand on Thursday for saying he was concerned about the meteoric rise of some coaches’ salaries (see: Nick Saban now; maybe Billy Donovan soon). Quoth Brand: “Is this the appropriate thing to do in the context of college sports?” But, like: Pot, meet Kettle. The words would carry more weight if they weren’t coming from the head of perhaps the most hypocritical organization in athletics.
8: You might remember in 2005 when the NCAA passed what it considered a “landmark” academic reform package to, in Brand’s words, “reinforce the idea that student-athletes are students first.” Now there’s a concept. We all have lofty goals. Personally, I’m for world peace. But a few months after that announcement, the NCAA rubber-stamped its approval for college football teams playing a 12th game. That effectively wiped out a potential bye week for the sake of revenue and increased physical and emotional wear on said “student”-athletes. Then again, it fell in line with other grab-the-money-and-run decisions, which has led to wonderful things like 10 p.m. tipoffs.
March Madness in Atlanta:
Check out the AJC’s Final Four page7: Look, I’ve got no problem with people making money. I’d like to do it myself someday. But if the NCAA is going to continue to act like a professional sports outlet, just shed the amateur see-through cape and pay the athletes. That won’t happen, though, because Brand doesn’t see anything wrong with the NCAA’s decision-making and, in fact, denies that academics have been compromised (we pause for a moment of silent reflection).
6: Brand: “One of the frustrations we have is when people get their facts wrong. Academics have improved. Kids are doing better, not worse. The facts are that, academically, they’ve done better since we added the 12th game.”
5: I wasn’t even going to ask for the data. Numbers can be spun. If graduation rates and/or grades really have risen, imagine the ramifications of an official saying: “No, we won’t take the money. Our kids need more time to study.” And Brand might want to know that the last time I checked with a few coaches and athletics directors on the NCAA’s decision making, rolled eyes were looking back at me.
4: OK, the NCAA doesn’t make money on everything. Practice is free today. Greg Oden will be the really big guy, hoping to not be a Hawk.
3: It’s hard not to like Tubby Smith as a person or a coach. But does anybody really believe he was completely oblivious to his agent entertaining other coaching offers for six weeks?
2: And then there was the small college in Boca Raton (Lynn University) where students get three class credits for passing, “The Final Four Experience.” It’s part of a sports-management degree. They stay in a hotel, go to basketball (Final Four), hockey (Thrashers) and baseball (Georgia Tech) games and then go home. Supposedly, there is homework involved. But I think we’ve seen this before in Athens.
1: Hey, wait, that’s my job.
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Nothing better than Final Four Saturday
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
The championship game has a trophy presentation and ‘One Shining Moment’ on the big screen, but Final Four Saturday has twice as many games, twice as many teams, 10 times the color and pageantry. And isn’t college sports all about color and pageantry?
The championship game offers finality, but Final Four Saturday offers possibility. How many times has the least likely team wound up winning on Saturday and then again come Monday night? (Think Villanova in 1985. Think Kansas in 1988. Think Arizona in 1997. Heck, think Syracuse in 2003.)
The championship game gets the big TV rating, but Final Four Saturday is the place to be. Two teams play, then another two. Will Bynum twists for the layup then beats Oklahoma State, and then Emeka Okafor snares the loose ball and makes the basket that sinks Duke. (I was sitting with some Georgia Tech staffers at the end of the UConn-Duke semifinal in 2004, and it was hard to know what part made them happier — that their team was going to the title game or that the Dookies weren’t.)
The championship game ends the season and crowns a titlist, but Final Four Saturday is why we keep coming back to this event with such anticipation. After all, CBS doesn’t hype ‘The Road to the Title Game’ all season; it’s ‘The Road To The Final Four.’ It’s why this event is different from — and better than — the Super Bowl and the World Series and the NBA Finals.
The championship game is one massive game, but Final Four Saturday is a big fat doubleheader. There aren’t many of those in sports anymore, not even in baseball, and double features at the movies died with drive-in theaters. (I know, I know. There’s this ‘Grindhouse’ twin bill coming up, but the hype it’s getting shows how novel the concept is in a squeeze-every-dollar marketplace.)
The championship game is a great event, but Final Four Saturday is a great day. It’s the best day in American sports. And this year it’s here.
