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Sunday, March 16, 2008
Fiasco’s best guess? I’ll take UCLA
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
The 21st annual Final Four Fiasco begins with a woozy confession: I’m still dazed by Georgia. In one tornado-tossed weekend the Bulldogs won as many games against SEC opposition (four) as they had over the two-month conference season. Which only goes to show …
You never know.
The genesis of the Fiasco was, way back in 1988, to get a peek at other people’s brackets. I’ve seen a slew of them over these two decades, and from experience I can tell you: When it comes to college basketball in March/April, we’re all just guessing. That in mind, here are this year’s guesses:
Three No. 1 seeds will reach San Antonio. Two No. 1 seeds will meet for the NCAA title. And the least likely name on the grid — that’d be Georgia, above and beyond Coppin State — won’t win another game. (Then again, I didn’t think the Bulldogs would win a game in the SEC tournament.)
Even a roll as giddy as the Bulldogs’ eventually reaches an end. Remember Syracuse and Gerry McNamara storming to an improbable four-games-in-four-days Big East title in 2006? Remember what the Orange did in its first NCAA game? Lost to 12th-seeded Texas A&M.
The worst thing that can happen to a hot team is to sit for three days and ruminate over what it just did. Owing to the delirious events on two Atlanta courts, Georgia’s season will be a success even if it ends at 17-17 against Xavier on Thursday. The belief here is that it will. Feel free to disagree.
Feel likewise free to disagree with the pick to win the South Regional — fourth-seeded Pitt. I’m going against Memphis on principle: I don’t believe any team that can’t make 3-pointers or free throws is a Final Four team. And I’m going against Texas, which will be playing the regional in Houston, because I don’t think geography negates size and tenacity.
I’ve liked Pitt’s toughness for years but was always chastened by the Panthers’ inability to make shots come March. With the return of Levance Fields from injury, they have their shotmaker back. (His trey beat Duke in December, you’ll recall.) I see the South final as a cage match between Pitt and Stanford, and I see the Panthers doing to the Cardinal what they just did to Georgetown in the Big East title game.
In the Midwest, I’m breaking a vow broken many times over the breadth of the Fiasco: I’m picking Kansas. I’ve taken the Jayhawks and been wrong so many times that every March I swear to myself, “I’ll never trust those guys again.” But I’m trusting them this time because I trust everyone else in the region even less.
Clemson has to steal the ball to win, and that never works for long in this tournament. Georgetown isn’t as good as it was a year ago, and the Hoyas will face a tricky Round 2 game against Davidson, which will beat Gonzaga. Assuming Georgetown gets past the Wildcats, it’ll have a brutal semifinal against Wisconsin, and Kansas will pick off the winner — let’s say the Hoyas — in the final.
As I type, the ESPN crew is going on about North Carolina’s rough road in the East. Let the record show that road is still Tobacco Road — Rounds 1 and 2 in Raleigh, the regional semis and final in Charlotte. (When it’s geography coupled with talent, I feel rather differently.) I don’t like Tennessee for the same reason I don’t like Clemson, and the Tigers at least have inside scorers, which the Vols lack. Tennessee will exit in Round 2 against South Alabama, which will then be dismissed by Louisville.
The most intriguing matchup on the board will be the Carolina-Washington State semifinal. The Heels want to go really fast, and the Cougars prefer to go slow. I can see Carolina getting frustrated and falling behind. I can also see the Heels, as they seem always to do when playing in their home state, winning at the end.
The Heels will beat Kansas in the Final Four — hey, didn’t Roy Williams used to coach the Jayhawks? — because Carolina has two men capable of making the big shot (Tyler Hansbrough and Wayne Ellington) and Kansas has only Mario Chalmers. Having just watched Carolina win the ACC tournament, the temptation is mighty to take the Heels to win it all. I’m resisting because of four little letters.
U-C-L-A.
The West Regional should be easy pickings for the Bruins. Fading Duke will lose to West Virginia in Round 2, which will beat Xavier in the regional semis. Connecticut might have given UCLA a run a month ago, but not now.
The Bruins were derailed by Florida in the past two Final Fours because they couldn’t score against the Gators. The advent of Kevin Love changes that. UCLA still defends as well as any team anywhere, and they now have an offensive complement. Love can score inside and can fuel the break with outlet passes, and Darren Collison is the best point guard in the land.
Love won’t necessarily conquer Hansbrough in the championship game, but he’ll score enough to approximate Psycho T’s output. And the rest of the Bruins are slightly better than the rest of the Heels. So make it 12 NCAA titles for UCLA, which won its 11th under Jim Harrick, who used to coach Georgia, which just played its way into the Big Dance.
Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction.
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Felton takes UGA worst to first in 4 days
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
We saw things that previously existed only in hallucinations.
A conference punching bag wearing championship hats and T-shirts (somebody actually had those ready?). The maligned coach smiling, climbing a ladder, cutting down a net and waving it in front of the student section.
A sign reading, “Worst To First (in four days).”
All wrong-way signs lead to this.
Georgia: from 4-12 to SEC tournament champions. On a court with “ACC” painted in the lanes. On the campus of its rival.
Georgia: from smoked by 14 points on its home court to close the regular season, to four wins in four days — three in a span of 29 hours.
Georgia: from program perceived in disarray to NCAA tournament berth.
Do we even have to ask about Dennis Felton’s future?
“Of course he’s going to be back,” said Damon Evans, the athletics director. “He’s our basketball coach.”
Special upsets in sports have had “miracle” attached to them. The U.S. Olympic hockey team over the Soviet Union. Buster Douglas over Mike Tyson. Villanova over Georgetown.
This was simply Bulldogs over Logic.
Felton said his team was “kicked in the stomach” before it ever played a game this year. Academic suspensions, injuries and defections wrecked the program. When Evans gave ambiguous answers to questions about Felton’s future, it was clear disenchantment had risen well north of the fan base.
Felton tried to stay cool. As he stood Sunday in Alexander Memorial Coliseum, fans screaming around him, the NCAA tournament selection show blaring on a video screen up above, he admitted he was worn down by the speculation on his future.
“It’s been difficult,” he said. “It’s the first time in my life I was in that position. I pride myself on keeping my composure and staying poised. But it’s difficult when you can’t answer the questions. I always felt I was doing a good job to build Georgia basketball, so it was hard for me to defend myself, when I didn’t feel the need to defend myself. The honest truth is, it’s incredibly difficult to stay focused through all of that. As hard as I worked at it, there were moments when I was distracted by it. I feel like I’m a pretty tough guy. I feel I can handle anything. But it was very tough.”
We’ll never know how close Felton was to getting fired. Asked afterward when exactly it became a non-issue, Evans smiled. “I’ll just say it this way: It’s a non-issue now.”
The Bulldogs beat Mississippi, which humiliated them at home on “Senior Night.” They beat Kentucky, which went 12-4 in the conference. A few hours later, with tired legs, they beat Mississippi State, which started the day 22-9. They beat Arkansas, 66-57, the day after the Hogs stunned fourth-ranked Tennessee.
Dennis Felton doesn’t deserve a contract extension any more. He deserves a statue (maybe even next to the arena).
“I saw a team jell,” Evans said. “They looked like they were having more fun. It was as if something just clicked. And I saw our coach a little more relaxed. Dennis is intense but he somehow found a button to push with these kids and they started believing.”
They were dragging in the second half. Their lead, once as much as 19 points, was trimmed to five. Evans watched Felton. He saw the coach yell and stomp his feet, as usual, but he also noticed an encouraging, nurturing side.
“The players felt he could get them there if they would just listen to him — and Dennis got them there,” he said.
“By pulling the team together, by rallying the troops, by getting the fans to believe — I couldn’t be more proud of him. When you coach at this level, it’s not just about the X’s and O’s. There’s so many things that go into managing a program, and he showed that this week.”
It had been 25 years since Georgia had won the SEC tournament. People would have laughed at Melanie Felton, the coach’s wife, if they knew she was claiming destiny a few days earlier. Their 10-year-old son, Nile, was given a project by his teacher to research square pyramids. It was kismet. “I went to ‘[SEC] Fanfare’ and I took a picture of the trophy,” she said. “I thought, ‘Oh my God, the SEC trophy is a square pyramid!’ My girlfriend said, ‘It’s a sign! It’s a sign!’ ” The team posed with the same trophy Sunday. Rub your eyes, then look at the picture. It’s real.
Permalink | Comments (92) | Post your comment | Categories: Jeff Schultz, UGA / SEC
With one putt, Woods separates self from field
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Furman Bisher
Orlando — Tiger Woods and four other guys, some you don’t know too well, played into the last round at Bay Hill Sunday on even ground. Vijay Singh — you know him— Bart Bryant — you may have forgotten him — Sean O’Hair and Bubba Watson stood in a row at the top of the leaderboard, 6-under par. Each had his shot. This could be his day. Beat Tiger and take home Arnold Palmer’s Invitational trophy, to be presented by Arnie himself. There were some exciting possibilities on that scoreboard before us.
Not only just those five overnight leaders. But as the day wore on and warmed up at Bay Hill, more challengers began to join the firing from the wing. Tiger couldn’t shake the crowd. If it wasn’t one, it was another, and he was showing signs that he might be had. Bryant had seen it before, and he had taken him — by six strokes in the Tour Championship at East Lake Golf Club in 2005.
As it turned out, it would be Bryant who stuck to him like a barnacle down to the final stroke. Along the way, though, challengers kept rising up, firing and falling back. Hunter Mahan, former national amateur champion, came on like a runaway train before finding trouble. Ken Duke, a 39-year-old sophomore on the tour, rose up and made a flourish. But coming from farther out was a local veteran, Cliff Kresge, a last-minute addition to the field. He shook his cloak of journeyman and with a round of 67 turned in the best finish of his pro career, a tie for third at 273.
But the challenger who never gave ground was Bryant, ranked No. 137th in the world. It was the same Bryant who had known the feeling of taking Tiger in the Tour Championship. He was in the pairing just ahead of Woods and finished his day with a 67, 9-under-par 271 for the weekend at Arnie’s place.
Then there was nothing left but to wait for Tiger’s finish, and put a finish on it, Tiger did. His putting had been somewhat erratic over the day, and on the 18th green he faced about a 25-footer for the whole shebang. Bryant waited in the scorer’s tent.
“I didn’t have to see it,” he said. “I knew the crowd would tell me, and they did.”
It was the second such finish for Woods on the same hole, same tournament. In 2001, he sank the winning putt on the 18th green, and that time his victim wasn’t the 137th in the world, it was Phil Mickelson. Mickelson was here this week, but far out of the running. Woods finished with a 10-under 270.
Woods was on the edge of his game most of the weekend, and said so. He three-putted the 10th green from seven feet, and the chase was on. Bryant bogeyed the 11th, birdied the 12th, then the 15th, and the sprint to the wire was on. When Woods sank the deciding putt, he flew in a state of exhilaration, cap came off and he flung it to the ground.
Later, he said, “Stevie [his caddie] handed me my cap and I said, ‘How the hell did my cap come off?’ ” He was, indeed, lost in the exhilaration of it all.
Standing in the scorer’s cabin, watching it all, was Bryant with the man who had been his official scorer. And when the roar of the crowd split the air, Bryant said to his companion, “Man, that guy is good.”
And the curtain dropped on another dramatic scene at Bay Hill, starring Eldrick Woods.
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