It takes a durable team to make it to the Sweet 16, but what about the coaches Thursday night for Florida vs. UCLA?
Steve Alford and Billy Donovan have been gym rats for so long that they both played in the 1987 Final Four. That’s quite a march back in basketball time, all the way back to short shorts, but when you remember that the 3-point line made its debut in the college game that same season, it sounds positively peach-basket primeval.
“We were obviously the same era as players,” Alford said Wednesday at the NCAA South Regional in Memphis. “I obviously remember him. … Somebody that just got the most out of his ability and played hard and played well, and his teams do the same thing.”
Donovan’s getting a compliment there from one of Bobby Knight’s greatest stars at Indiana, so he fires one right back, saying, “I’ve always liked Steve. I’ve got a lot of respect for him as a person. He’s a really, really good guy.”
That’s it, then. Dueling niceties is as close as we’re ever going to get to a one-on-one individual battle between Alford, the leader of Indiana’s 1987 national title team, and Donovan, Rick Pitino’s 3-point pioneer at Providence. After all, their teams didn’t meet at that long-ago Final Four in the Superdome, with Providence fizzling out in a semifinal against Syracuse.
Donovan’s reputation has grown so much more in the years since, however, winning two national titles at Florida and cooking up a consistently excellent hoops program in a state soaked all the way to the roots in football, football and more football.
Alford’s path is straighter and more brightly lit, from Hoosier legend to the caretaker of John Wooden’s eternal flame at UCLA, but where ultimately is it leading?
Two Sweet 16 trips is all he’s gotten thus far as a coach, counting this one and a 1999 surprise with Missouri State. Every other NCAA tournament experience has been stopped way short for Alford, with a total of six opening-weekend exits at Iowa and New Mexico.
An upset of top-seeded Florida on Thursday night at the FedEx Forum would change everything. Suddenly Alford would become the whiz of Westwood, the coach who got UCLA going again, and the coach who finally flushed Florida out of the Bruins’ system. Ben Howland, the previous boss at UCLA, got knocked out of the Final Four twice by the Gators, including the 2006 championship game.
“We know we’ve got a lot of challenges with Florida,” said Alford, “so everybody might as well throw in the history, too.”
He’s smiling when he says that. Smiling all the time, really. The Bruins, 28-8 in his first year and Pac-12 tournament champions, are playing looser under Alford than he ever did under Knight. It’s a high-scoring team, averaging 81 points per game, and at a time when the Lakers have been thoroughly drained, Los Angeles is looking more than ever to UCLA for some of that old showtime religion.
“Coach always stresses to us, ‘Don’t be robots,’ ” said sophomore Kyle Anderson, who at 6-feet-9 leads UCLA in rebounding and plays point guard, too. “He gives us the freedom to make plays.”
Don’t read a lack of discipline into that statement, however. UCLA doesn’t rely that much on 3-point shooting and statistically rebounds as well as powerful Florida, with both averaging 35 and change. Alford will try to get his guys out and running, and having fun. In transition, on fire, they have the power to make Donovan think twice about pressing the whole game long.
“We’re playing our best basketball,” said Alford, “and that’s what makes for a great matchup. When you play Florida, you’re going to have to score. If the game is in the 50s, that’s probably not favoring UCLA. We need the thing to be a little bit more up-tempo than that.”
That’s the plan, at least, and Billy, if he wants to be a real pain about it, might just adopt it as his own. He’s got the athletes to win a shootout and, given the time he’s had to study UCLA, he’s certainly capable of putting them to new uses.
“I hope we score 120 (Thursday),” said Donovan, “but we haven’t done it this year.”
They’re not playing any more, these two wonder boys of 1987, but they’re still grinding.
Donovan and Alford, two good guys in a bad fix. For one of them, a truly great season is about to hit the wall. For the other, the winner, this crazy quest for a national title will still be only halfway done.
