On the verge of Atlanta’s fourth Final Four, four broadcasters who covered the winding trail from Dayton, Ohio, to here got together this week to discuss what they’ve learned along the way.
All part of the CBS/Turner Sports team that has chronicled every dunk and disappointment of this NCAA tournament, theirs has been a nearly three-week, full-immersion basketball baptism. Their eyes are all a shade of NCAA Official Basketball orange about now.
All four — Clark Kellogg (Ohio State), Greg Anthony (UNLV), Steve Kerr (Arizona) and Doug Gottlieb (Oklahoma State) — have been to the Big Dance, too, as players, each getting at least as far as the Sweet 16. They know the experience inside and out.
The possession arrow is pointing toward Anthony; he gets the first word.
Q: Greg, you’re the one on the panel with a championship — 1990 Runnin’ Rebels. Have you rubbed it in yet?
Anthony: Nah, it was a great opportunity, great experience. I took more pride when we could beat Arizona. Steve will attest, that was our big rival. I got as much pleasure out of our Sweet 16 win over Arizona my sophomore year (1989).
Kerr: Then the next year after the championship you had the heartache against Duke (an epic 79-77 loss to the Blue Devils in the national semis). I want to make sure we keep you grounded.
Q: Well now, to be fair, we could ask Steve about his last college game.
Anthony: Yes, walk us through that, Steve. (Kerr, who set an NCAA 3-point shooting record (57.3 percent) in 1987-88, was only 2-for-12 in a Final Four loss to Oklahoma that season.)
Kerr: Doing the games the last few years has been a great reminder to me. I basically haven't forgiven myself for that game for 25 years. During the tournament when you see the pain and the anguish in every single team other than one it kind of reminds you that this is what it is about.
For us to get to the Final Four was such a great accomplishment, and I probably don’t respect that enough because I was so focused on the fact that we should have won the whole thing.
Gottlieb: All I ever wanted to do was get to the Final Four, and we didn't get there (his 2000 Oklahoma State team lost to Florida in the Elite Eight). To watch somebody else cut down the net, it's heart-wrenching.
Q: We have our shooter (Kerr), our big man (Kellogg), a defender (Anthony) and a ballhandler (Gottlieb) — let’s go find a court and run one.
Gottlieb: Two ballhandlers. Greg is ninth all-time in assists, I'm 10th. He's got me by three.
Kellogg: I wore away the cartilage in my left knee. I got to be careful just working out if I still want to play any golf.
If you let me shoot while playing no D, I’ll be all right.
Kerr: That sounds like my whole career.
Q: As we flash forward to the present, how many of you guys had Louisville, Michigan, Syracuse and Wichita State in your Final Four in your brackets?
Kellogg: I had no specific teams. I thought we would have one or two heavyweights and one or two from below the four-seed line, that's all I said prior to the start of the tournament. I thought Indiana had a chance, and Louisville.
Kerr: I've been doing this three years with Turner, and since I started doing it, I don't even do a bracket anymore. I used to love to do a bracket, get in a pool with all my buddies. Now when we get that assignment on Sunday, I'm so busy watching tape of whoever that I don't even bother with the bracket.
I think it’s kind of silly. I mean, it’s fun to do, but nobody really knows. We can all make these pronouncements why such and such a team will win. But we don’t know.
Gottlieb: (Selection) Sunday we were on the set, and Greg said Louisville is the best team in this field. The contrarian in me says, "OK, it can't be that obvious. There's got to be something I'm missing."
So like a dope I put Michigan State in there. I liked Michigan State all year.
Anthony: I just thought (the Louisville Cardinals) were the best team. The way I looked at it is they did more things better than anybody else. Secondly, from a defensive standpoint, they are the most relentless and intense team I've seen in a long time.
The Kevin Ware injury (the shattered leg) is significant. I spoke with him Monday morning, and he was in great spirits. I think (Louisville) will rally around him. I think they’ll be fine against Wichita State. At some point to me, Louisville is a three- or four-minute-stretch-in-the-game better.
That Michigan-Syracuse game is a pick ’em game, and I think either of those teams can beat Louisville.
Kerr: I agree. You look at Michigan and what they did to VCU's press. I know Louisville is a little different animal to VCU. Michigan's got great guards; arguably they have more pros than any team in the field. If they can get past Syracuse I think that will be a tremendous matchup with the pressure of Louisville and the guard play of Michigan.
Anthony: Louisville has more great college players. Their college players are great college players and the beauty of it is they're playing a college game.
Q: Who’s going to be the best player on the Georgia Dome floor this long weekend? Or, who might be an impact player who can sneak up on us.
Kellogg: One of the best players would be Michael Carter-Williams from Syracuse because he does so much and he's unique with that size (6-foot-6) at the point guard spot.
One of the more undervalued players — I like to call them “value-tility” guys, if you will — since Louisville loses Kevin Ware, I would keep an eye on Luke Hancock, the transfer from George Mason.
Kerr: I think (6-11 Louisville center Gorgui) Dieng is a total game-changer. He's talked about, but maybe not quite enough. He allows them to go out and extend on defense because he blocks everything at the rim. He's so quick off his feet. I just think he kind of takes their team to the next level because of his defensive abilities.
Gottlieb: Whether man or zone they funnel you right to him.
Value-tility, I like it. I don’t know if he’s value-tility or not, but I think (Syracuse forward) C.J. Fair has to have a huge game. They have a match-up advantage (with Fair). Syracuse is going to have to score. Their defense has been incredible, but Michigan is going to make shots. Fair has to have a huge night.
Best player — (Michigan guard) Trey Burke. The ball is always in his hands at the end of games. When you have that high volume of possessions at point guard spot, you’re going to make errors, but he’s made fewer and fewer errors as the season has gone on. And the steals that he’s made. We’ll find out what Trey Burke is made of this weekend.
Anthony: In my opinion, I think (Louisville guard) Russ Smith is head and shoulders above everyone. Clark's the one who gets credit for first saying this: I think he's the most intimidating open-court player we've seen in college basketball in over a decade. Not even close.
And he’s probably the best defender on the perimeter.
Kellogg: The best on-ball defender I've seen.
Anthony: One guy I'm looking at is from Wichita State, I'll go with (forward) Cleanthony Early. I think he's a talented player, a next-level talent who if he mentally gets it and really brings it, he makes them a really good team. He plays a position you can attack Louisville from (the wing). You're not going to attack Louisville at the point or at (shooting guard).
Kellogg: And you ain't attacking them at the rim, brother, not with Dieng back there.
Q: And the best coach who will be working this weekend?
Kerr: Tough to go against (Louisville's) Rick (Pitino). Obviously they're all great coaches at this stage, and what they've all done is really impressive. I like the way Rick manipulates the game with his changing defenses, his pressure. If I had to pick one coach to win a college game with time to prepare, I would take Rick Pitino.
Gottlieb: They're all really good, but with Pitino, it feels like he's got a little different level, kind of like his team, one more level than everybody else has now.
Kellogg: I like the way (Syracuse's Jim) Boeheim handles his teams, though. They play as comfortable and as stress-free year-in and year-out as any team in the country, and I think that's valuable. He never seems to overcook it.
Anthony: I'd take Pitino because for me his teams play with a level of intensity more than any other team. You can win a lot of different ways, there's no blueprint to success. But what you want more than anything is for your teams to play with a lot of heart and intensity, and I don't think that anybody in America — (Duke's) Coach Krzyzewski is the closest — will get a team to play as hard or with as much intensity as Rick Pitino.
Gottlieb: I got in trouble with Syracuse people because I said even though Boeheim has won more than 900 games, I didn't consider him one of those great coaches. But what Clark said is completely accurate. He's the master at not letting the little stuff bother him.
Q: Now, for the other element that is bound to affect what happens in the Georgia Dome Saturday and Monday — the officiating. What’s your view on the state of officiating in college basketball?
Kerr: My take on the tournament after watching all these games, I think the officiating has been very good. I think the rules need to be completely revamped. I think the rules in some ways are completely a joke at the college level. They have to fix the replay. They have to fix charge-block. They have to fix impeding movement on the weak side, chucking cutters, hand-checking. There's a lot of stuff that needs to be changed.
Gottlieb: Officiating is not worse, TV is better. It captures so many more images, and every game is on TV so we can see the errors the guys have made. There are a couple guys — and none of them are officiating this weekend — who tend to officiate angry. You don't shop hungry, and you don't officiate angry.
One thing, I’d be OK with adding a sixth foul.
Anthony: I don't want six fouls in a game. For one, players will adjust. They play eight less minutes than in the NBA, so I don't want to give them the same amount of fouls. To free the game up and create flow you actually need to have less fouls that would force you not to take as many aggressive chances defensively.
The issue I have, it’s an imperfect game that we’re trying to force the officials to perfect. You do the game a disservice. I think we should make the game easier for officials. The more rules we add, the harder their job becomes.
My biggest pet peeve in basketball is we don’t have a jump ball. It’s one of the single most important plays in the game, and we don’t have it. I think that is a joke, and it’s an embarrassment they don’t have one.
Kerr: It's also the foundation of the very sport, the very first rule, everything was a jump ball.
Gottlieb: It's a little bit of it is laziness because refs aren't good at throwing jump balls. Let's teach them all how to throw the jump ball correctly, and it won't be an issue.
Kerr: The replay needs to be totally revamped. We saw all the examples of the clock stopping and the game stopping when it shouldn't. Ironically the one thing we don't have for replay is who did the ball go off of (out of bounds), which is the most important one. That's what you should look at, but we can't look at it.
Concluding take: Within this little group, there is a profound difference in opinion on the requirement that players stay at least one year in college before jumping to the NBA. At one end is the Anthony view that a player should be able to begin his professional life whenever he feels ready — out of high school, anytime out of college, whenever — just as it would work with any other career. At the other is Gottlieb, who sees in the one-and-doners as a real threat to the continued health of the college game.
Let’s make an appointment to hear them out on that and all the other issues that are sure to arise the next time the Final Four is in Atlanta.
