We hereby declare that college basketball is through messing around.
The prelims are done. Time to quell the static of a too-long season and render all that has gone before trivial. Time to get to the essential work of winnowing 347 Division I teams down to one.
It’s net-cuttin’ time in Atlanta.
An official ladder arrived in town Thursday, a special 75th Anniversary Final Four edition designed to be a stairway to a Monday night victory party. This is a most fortunate piece of equipment, spared the fate of being unfolded only when it’s time to clean gunk from the gutters or top an overgrown holly.
It is a 9-foot ladder, and has just eight steps, yet it takes five months to climb.
Louisville, Michigan, Syracuse and Wichita State began the ascent in October when they and all the other applicants for Atlanta opened the first sanctioned practice. Only one will reach the top late Monday and perform the ceremonial pruning of the rim that is the happy obligation of a champion.
One by one, members of the team that wins it all late Monday will climb the ladder and begin snipping away pieces of the net as permanent keepsakes — for the skills of youth are fleeting, but nylon is forever.
The ladder they’ll climb — painted in tones blue and yellow, suspiciously close to Michigan hues — is adorned with the names of the 74 previous NCAA champions. At the ready are nameplates for all four teams gathered in Atlanta to add to the list. Yes, there’s even one made for ninth-seeded Wichita State because this is an event that is proud to cater to the underdog.
It is a curious tradition this turning an act of vandalism into a completely acceptable public display, one unique to college basketball.
BCS champions don’t tear down the goalpost. World Series champions don’t take spades and dig home plate from the clay. In the NBA, it is beneath the pros to cut down a net, or to even hire someone to cut it down for them.
The celebration is said to have begun in 1947, when North Carolina State players hoisted coach Everett Case upon their shoulders to remove the net after winning the Southern Conference tournament.
Never doubt the nimbleness of the basketball mind. As those in charge once determined, something with a hole in it was better than a peach basket, so did they figure out that a ladder came in handy when reaching for something high.
The symbolic importance of the net-cutting ceremony grew through the years. It became something of an art, to save the last strand for the head coach so that he may snip it and hold up the severed net like a trophy largemouth bass.
Another N.C. State coach, the late Jim Valvano, used to devote whole practices to having his players rehearse cutting down the nets. That was another of his psychological gambits to get his guys visualizing the day they would beat some unbeatable team from Houston.
This season, after backing into a share of the Big Ten title, Indiana’s Tom Crean had his players cut down the net in a near-empty arena even after a tough loss to Ohio State. Good move, for that would be the Hoosiers’ last opportunity to celebrate.
Three of the Final Four teams all got in some on-the-job net-cutting training, celebrating victories in their regional finals. Rick Pitino and the Louisville Cardinals took an opposite approach. They steadfastly refused to engage in the act even after winning the Big East tournament or the Midwest regional. “We’ll only cut one set of nets down,” said Cardinals forward Luke Hancock, looking toward Atlanta.
Very well then. All that’s required of them now — as well as the other three finalists — are two more victories, no appreciable fear of heights and a sharp pair of scissors.
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