The ACC tournament might well have been a red herring, but at this late date I’m happy to err on the sunny side. I’d decided not long ago that college basketball, which for most of my years I’d have described as my favorite sport, no longer rewarded watching. All the best players were either gone or going to the NBA, and those who remained couldn’t make a basket.
Those were my complaints, and they were buttressed by statistical reality. The numbers-cruncher Ken Pomeroy found that, late in the regular season, scoring in the college game had descended to a level unseen since 1952, which was before even an old-timer like me was born. (And for you young ‘uns, note that there was no shot clock or 3-point shot in those olden times.)
Georgia coach Mark Fox pointed to the number of fouls uncalled as the root of this evil, saying the hockey-without-pads nature of hoops had “become a national story” but conceding that as long as other teams could get away with bumping and banging, he’d have his Bulldogs do it, too. Thus did some truly awful scores – the nadir was Georgetown 37, Tennessee 36 – become the new and wretched normalcy.
The ACC convocation in Greensboro was different. It was basketball played at a high level, and not just defensive basketball. These teams made shots and scored points. A Miami that managed 69 points in a late-season loss to Georgia Tech and 62 in beating Clemson three days later would win the ACC tournament by mustering five consecutive halves of 40-plus points. There’s no cheering allowed on press row, but I’d be lying if I didn’t own up to a few silent hurrahs.
Jim Larranaga, who coaches Miami, said afterward that his team, which prides itself on its defense –almost every team does – knew it would have to do better on offense to beat the likes of North Carolina State and North Carolina. Then again, there’s a chance the ACC tournament flattered to deceive: The 87 points Miami scored in the final tied for its second-highest output of the season, and the Hurricanes, who seem to me the nation’s second-best team, averaged only 69.4 points per game.
The ACC has long been considered a finesse league, and there’s truth to that. There’s no Wisconsin, for which plodding is a way of life, in the ACC, and there’s no Georgetown. (Though there will soon be a Pitt and a Syracuse.) As breathtaking as Louisville’s 56-point second half against Syracuse in the Big East final was, it must be noted that the same Cardinals, who seem to me the nation’s best team, mustered 51 points against Georgetown in a full game.
As much fun as the ACC tournament was, I worry that it was the exception that will prove the rule. Carolina and State forced Miami to play faster, but the way of the Big Dance is that slow-dancing is the norm. TV timeouts are a minute longer and coaches are more inclined than ever to coach every dribble.
When he was coaching Siena, Paul Hewitt gave Sports Illustrated the best description of NCAA basketball I’ve heard: In the tournament, Hewitt said, everyone guards hard because they’re desperate, and it comes down to who can make a shot. Too often in this deflating regular season, nobody seemed capable of putting the ball in the basket, which was once – and should always be – the idea.
When you first pick up a basketball, you don’t throw it to someone else and say, “Here, let me block your shot.” Your instinct to shoot the darn thing. I admire defense greatly, but I admire it rather less when defenses get so fierce as to throw a beautiful game out of balance.
The best game of last season’s tournament was Kentucky’s 102-90 victory over Indiana at the Georgia Dome. Those champions-to-be Wildcats could really defend, but they couldn’t halt the hurryin’ Hoosiers. The best team in the nation had to score to win, and it was lovely to behold. This season’s Indiana should have been even better, but here we note that the Hoosiers failed to break 60 in two losses to Wisconsin and one to Ohio State.
That, sad to say, is the brutal nature of the Big Ten, and it can be effective. (Ohio State and Wisconsin just played for that league’s championship.) But it isn’t pretty, and there are times when it doesn’t much resemble basketball.
As the latest installment of the NCAA tournament begins to wind its way toward Northside Drive, I worry that the offensive flair I saw in Greensboro will prove a false spring. I worry that we’re about to watch a tournament where the first team to 50 wins. I hope like crazy I’m wrong.
About the Author
