Jack’s Blog

It’s great to be back but I’m leaving again.  I’m honored to be the emcee at the party in Las Vegas tonight to celebrate Jerry Tarkanian’s induction into the College Basketball Hall of Fame.  When I get back, it’s off to the Stanford Pain Management Center for a pump refill and check up.  Then, into the car to drive down the 101 to Monterey to pick up Alex who just finished his first year of college at Cal State Monterey Bay and bring him home for the summer.  He claims he nailed it academically this semester.  If he can match his inaugural season in college hoops, in which he was one of only ten players in the country to make the Division II Freshmen All-America team - and the only one from the west coast - he’ll have had a successful beginning to college life.

Not done yet.  For those of you who have ever checked out CoachGeorgeRaveling.com, the website for my boss previous to Tark, you might have seen the video section entitled #JackAndCoach.  On it, I turn the tables on George who has interviews with individuals such as Oscar Robertson, Nolan Richardson, David Falk (MJ’s agent) and my man, Tark, among many others.  In our segment, I pose questions to get to know “the inside Rave.”  Currently, there are between 25-28 “shorts,” about 3-5 minutes in length.  Some are very funny, others quite moving, all entertaining.  We spent about five hours shooting last fall and it’s time for round two, so I’ll be, ahem, on location in LA, as they say, this weekend.  This blog will return Monday.  

The Chicago Bulls teased the entire country when they won Game One of their best-of-seven series with the Miami Heat - in Miami.  Nate Robinson showed what a little guy can do when given a chance - and is playing for a contract.  The fact that Nate hasn’t stuck with any of his five teams yet has more to do with his just being an ultra-short little guy.  The performance that night - and his continued aggressive play despite all the odds - raised the eyebrows of fans and, probably some general managers.  Last night was an abomination of a contest.  Tired or other issues?  Why haven’t the Bulls been able to repeat an effort like they did in the opener?

ESPN has four guys talking about it when the games are on their stations; TNT has four (in my opinion, better) analysts discussing the contests when they’re aired on their network.  The groups chime in on what has happened and what needs to be done to fix the problem.  In each case we hear about how some player needs to contribute more, to become that all-important creation of analysts - the X-factor.  Basically, the talking heads aren’t necessary for this series.  When a superstar is forced into street clothes, it’s obvious the team’s getting nothing from him that day.  In addition, they’re probably going to encounter a serious drop off at that spot in the lineup.

The complete analysis for the Bulls and Heat goes as follows:

“The Bulls have lost their starting point guard and both wings.  They’re playing against the best basketball team in the world.  Next?”

It’s vacation time!  This will be my last blog until Tuesday, May 14.  Look forward to returning with more stories to entertain and inspire.

Whatever anyone says about Jerry Tarkanian, no one refutes he was the master of getting guys to play hard.  The one type of guy who Tark couldn’t stand to have on his team, whom he knew that if he played, sooner or later, they were going to lose.  He called that kind of player a “Cool Guy.”  I haven’t talked to him yet about the Chicago Bulls but I imagine he was totally impressed.  Not because they won in Game 7 but because . . . they don’t have any cool guys.

One coach Tark has always been unbelievably impressed with is Tom Thibodeau.  Tibbs doesn’t like cool guys either.  He took a Chicago Bulls team without Kirk Heinrich, Luol Deng and, of course, Derrick Rose, a former MVP whose services he hasn’t had all year, into Brooklyn’s brand new digs and came out a winner.  He took a franchise which has had incredible success - but had never, NEVER, won a game 7 on the road.  Yet they did it.  Why?

Thibodeau has been telling us all along:

“We have enough.”

On 4/30/08, I posted the following blog.  Five years later, my feelings remain unchanged.  Coaches get fired every year and as salaries soar (due to a minority of coaches who excel at their craft), pressure is ratcheted up even greater.  One fact remains.  Whatever number of teams a league has in it, somebody is going to finish last.  Writers and sportscasters aren’t held to such a standard.  See what you think.     

At the beginning of each season, there are preseason polls, usually the work of sportswriters, sportscasters and other various and sundry pundits.  At the conclusion of the year, many of these prognosticators who put together these polls in the first place are talking about how many of the teams picked to win or finish at the top of their conference/division had disappointing seasons.

Fans, boosters and owners often buy into this concept - and they lose confidence in the coaching staff, increasing pressure (which, believe me, there is plenty already) or patience (and make a change - possibly just at the time the team was poised to have that breakthrough year - see Mike Krzyzewski at Duke after their 11-17 record in the ‘82-’83 season).  Coaches have been chastised on numerous occasions for “bad-mouthing” their team’s chances during the preseason, the critics claiming the coaches don’t want the pressure.  While this is possibly true, the coach also may know something (being much closer to his team than those doing the ranking) that will prevent them from living up to such a lofty selection.  Also, the reason could be that no one wants to have to live “up” to expectations; that they’d rather “surprise” people, have great seasons and, receive (sometimes planned, often not, but always welcome) the praise for an “over-achieving” campaign.  Many times these types of seasons lead to raises, contract extensions and, on occasion, a new gig (see Keno Davis from Drake going to Providence for somewhere in the neighborhood of seven figures and long-term security - whatever that is in the coaching profession - after the Bulldogs went from being picked at the bottom of their conference to becoming media darlings and NCAA Tournament Cinderellas). Note: since then, Davis has lost his job at Providence.  Replace his name and Drake and Providence with Andy Enfield and Florida Gulf Coast and USC.  Obviously, the current system is purely speculative (although fans love them, hence resulting in selling more papers and magazines) and on some occasions, they might be right on target.  Of course, the possibility exists that these pollsters have limited knowledge of “what they speak” (or rate) and put untrue, excessive or unfair expectations on the teams.  And the coach.  Keep in mind that for every Keno Davis, there’s a guy who was picked high and finished low (possibly costing him the loss of his job) - all because a group who may not have done any (or, at most, limited) research into the project or, as is known to happen, may have given it to a gofer to select.

Wouldn’t it be interesting to make everyone’s poll public information and, when a guy makes drastically wrong selections (maybe two or three years in a row), he loses his job (maybe as just a prognosticator - or maybe as a “whatever he actually does for a living”)?  It would make watching the final polls so much more interesting.  Can you imagine a player or coach asking a pollster at the post game press conference, “Well, you picked us last in our league and we’re on top while the team you predicted to ‘win it all’ is struggling in seventh place.  Are you at all worried about your position at the paper/station?”  Wonder how that guy’s wife would react if she heard that on the local or national news and how their kids would feel at school the next day when their classmates would approach them and innocently ask, “My dad said he heard your dad is going to get fired.”  Just another item to check in the “interesting things to think about but will never happen” category.

These prognosticators should take into account the words of Benjamin Disraeli who said:

“How much easier it is to be critical than be correct.”

Granted, these are the dog days of the NBA.  There are a few teams that might already be, dare I say, “positioning themselves” for the draft?  Others know there is more ball to be played (and bonus money to be made) once the season ends.  Except for a select few, e.g. the Lakers, many are more concerned with keeping their key guys healthy than trying to influence the postseason match ups.

Enter the Harlem Globetrotters Miami Heat.  The Heat won it all last year (one year too late, some say).  One of the concerns last season was whether the team had a reliable three point shooter to kick it out to after penetration.  So they got . . . the greatest three point marksman of all-time, Ray Allen.  He joined LeBron, D-Wade and Chris Bosh and (most of) the remainder of the team that won it all.  Was that fair?  There’s nothing fair about building a team in the NBA - the better the executives, the more understanding the owner is that money must be spent wisely (but, make no mistake about it, it must be spent), the slicker the people running the organization, the more likely the team will plug the gaps that are holding it back from being mentioned as a club that can compete for a championship - on a nightly basis.

The Miami Heat knew they were going to - as coaches are fond of saying - get everyone’s best shot.  Winning as much as they did during the first part of the year wasn’t surprising.  The “Big Three” had shed whatever it was that could have been on their collective backs their initial season (their first together) and they seemed to be playing looser.  A similar feeling for their coaching staff.

As the season progressed, injuries hit team after team and, as the post-All Star game part of the schedule moved on, the Heat kept adding win after win.  Now, the “streak” became the topic of conversation.  With the NCAA’s March Madness fever grabbing nearly every sports fan, college basketball owns this time of the year.  Spring training has begun, football and its trading deadline occupies some space and the Blackhawks gave hockey enthusiasts something to talk about post-lockout.

Meanwhile, Miami (the pro hoops team, not the college one) almost bored people with its dismantling of opponents - the “contendas” as well as those who show up because league rules dictate they must.  OK, so what about their bitter rival, aka the (aging, but) capable Boston Celtics?  The arena will always be rockin’ when the Heat show up regardless of the circumstances.  Except that there would be no Rajon Rondo (even though the W-L results have yet to be affected by the little dynamo’s absence) and no KG.  What Kevin Garnett gives the Celts, beyond points and rebounds, is a nastiness seldom seen in any sport.  Or pretty much in any walk of life.  You’ve heard how people say, “If I were in a war, the guy I’d like to have in my foxhole is Kevin Garnett?”  Even pacifists feel that way about KG.

So when it was announced that Garnett wouldn’t be available, green flags were about to be flown at half staff.  Only this is Boston, damn it!  Beantowners don’t surrender to anybody!  Somebody would come through with a wicked good game.  This time that somebody was Jeff Green who had a personal high (as well as a high for most NBA players) of 43.  The Men in Green were often up double digits and led for the entire game.  Or so it seemed.  Until LeBron hit the game winner after the Heat finally tied it.

Had the Heat been toying with them?  To many it might now seem so after watching that game last night, the Heat’s 23rd victory in a row.  A person I was with suggested Miami actually would like to see the streak end so they could simply worry about just winning the playoffs.  The pressure of back-to-back will be enough of a burden.  A winning streak would only be an albatross for the last season’s champs.

Some may wonder if the late, and fiercely competitive, owner of the Raiders, Al Davis, wouldn’t back off (between now and the end of the regular season) his famous saying:

“Just win, baby!”

The ESPN guys each were to ask NCAA basketball committee head Mike Bobinski one question.  When they got around to Greg Anthony, he asked why #5 seed UNLV was playing #12 Cal 1) when the committee didn’t have teams play each other who’d played during the regular season and 2) why the game was being played in San Jose, a virtual home game for the Golden Bears.  Coincidence?  Anthony’s a proud graduate of UNLV and was simply looking out for his home boys.  Take a listen to every other TV commentator.

Seth Greenberg, not surprisingly, empathized with any bubble team that played in a “big” conference, had a huge win but bad losses and was left out of the Dance, himself having been shut out of an at-large bid for several years - including one year in which his Virginia Tech squad beat Duke, at the time the #1 team in the country.  In a TV interview after the game he was assured by none other than Dick Vitale that you won’t have to sweat a bid this year, baby, you’ll be dancing (or something like that).  The Hokies, however, followed up that monumental win by losing to Boston College at home by 15, then again at Clemson to finish the regular season.  That year, as there usually are, there were attractive “mid” major clubs and one (or more) of them was selected over the Hokies.  Can’t say as I blame him for being snubbed as going to the NIT gets old for your fans.

If you didn’t know Jay Bilas attended Duke, you’d probably be able to figure it out when you hear him explain which teams should be in and which should be out.  Maybe he could disguise Duke but not his affection for schools from “power” conferences.  This year his beef was “In order to get selected by the committee, it’s not about who you beat; it’s about who you lose to.”  This stems from the “little” guy not playing as difficult a schedule as the big boys do.  Not non-conference but conference!  It’s almost like it’s the little guy’s fault they’re in a conference that doesn’t give them chances game after game to get “quality” wins (from others in the league).  One of these was Middle Tennessee State who went 28-5, but lost to Florida International in the semi-finals of the Sun Belt Conference (annually a one bid league).

One thing that’s for sure regarding Middle Tennessee.  Any other team from any power conference, had it switched places in the Sun Belt this season with MTSU, would have faced a tall order to accomplish what the Blue Raiders did this season.  Beyond the glossy record, their non-conference losses were at Florida, at Akron (in OT) and at Belmont (all NCAA tournament teams).  They lost in their fourth conference game of the season, at Arkansas State in OT, before stringing 17 straight league victories.  Then, the fateful setback to FIU.  True, they didn’t have some of the big-name wins a team like Virginia had.  They didn’t have the opportunity!  They also didn’t have the opportunity to lose games to the schools, including the bad ones.

It’s the same slam Gonzaga sued to receive and first, Don Monson, then, Mark Few, went out and insanely scheduled the big boys, often with no return game.  Now, teams like Gonzaga, Middle, Davidson, Butler, VCU are just like Duke, UNC and Kentucky as they get every team’s best shot, in front of packed arenas - which for other games the attendance doesn’t approach capacity.  It’s as hard, or harder, to play in front of a jammed, raucous band box of a gym holding a few thousand, than it is a 15,000 sold out arena.

There’s no way of comparing mid-majors and “middling” majors as bracketologist Joe Lunardi refers to schools who aren’t particularly good but get to play in power conferences.  In one way this year’s ESPN production was quite a turnaround for Bilas, who in 2011 absolutely lambasted the committee for awarding one of the final bids to VCU, not only on Selection Sunday, but in every show he was part of - until the Rams were still alive in the Sweet Sixteen.  Of course, that year, the Rams made a Cinderella trip to the Final Four, justifying not only their selection but legitimizing them as a program not to ever again be taken lightly.

Wally Szcerbiak, who starred at Miami (OH), ending his career as Mid-American Conference Player-of-the-Year, picked Gonzaga to the Final Four and there was joy in his voice as he’d been on the Zags’ bandwagon before it was fashionable.

Mateen Cleaves went away from that line of thought when he picked Louisville over Michigan State, admitting he wasn’t going with his heart when he made the choice.  Almost like he was apologizing to Spartan Nation for doing his job as a paid prognosticator.

It’s interesting listening to each guy explain his “side.”  This most difficult part of Jay Bilas is that he’s a former (or, for all we know, a current) lawyer.  What that means is that it’s difficult for others to speak with him because as a very close friend of mine once said:

“When two people have a discussion, it should be an exchange of information, that is, each person should learn something from the other.  With a lawyer, there has to be a winner and a loser.  And the lawyer has to win.”

March Madness has always meant upsets.  Fans love upsets - even when they blow up their brackets.  What usually happens is that the biggest upsets occur in the first or second round.  However, the past few years have seen “mid-majors” play in the Final Four!  This year we may not be so startled - for a different reason.

This season, unlike all the others, most people who follow the sport closely, feel the national champion may be one of as many as 15-20 teams.  In the past, parity be damned, the team cutting down the nets was almost always a top ten preseason squad.  The tournament was exciting, with upsets and near upsets, but the eventual champion always came from a so-called “power” conference, i.e. a school with basketball tradition.  Until 2010.  Almost.

Butler made a magical run and, all of a sudden, the nation was watching them play for all the marbles - against the standard bearer for the power schools - Duke.  Naturally, the game was held in the the Bulldogs hometown.  No one was sure what the actual split was as far as percentage of fans who were rooting for David vs. those who were pulling for the big fella but the game was scripted exactly as the tournament had been up to that point.

Everyone who said that, ‘Sure there are upsets along the way” (like, every year) “but one of the big money, perennial basketball studs with great bloodlines  always prevails in the end,” had to hold their collective breaths - as the Bulldogs’ Gordon Hayward took the final shot - a heave from deeeeeep.  If someone happened to be watching their first college basketball game ever that night, by the time Hayward let that shot go, they understood the significance of whether that that ball went through the hoop or not.  So, while the ball was in flight, it really seemed like time stood still - with everyone (im)patiently waiting for the outcome.  To make it even more suspenseful, the ball banked off the backboard and hit the rim - but, alas, missed - narrowly avoiding what would have rewritten the history books on college basketball and Final Fours.

This year we may not be afforded a major surprise because so many teams have a legitimate opportunity to call themselves #1.

But I think I’ll watch it anyway.

College kids storming the floor after a huge win (”huge” being relative at different universities) has become as much a part of campus life as homecoming.  Hey, why not?  Coaches and athletics administrators implore students to attend games and be loud!  “We especially need help tonight against our rivals, State U, who’s #1 in our league/in the country.”

So they follow orders, support the players and, often, really make a difference.  Maybe a little one but in a close game, all the squad needs is a point or two.  Maybe the team gets a bucket because of a hustle play by a player not known for going all-out.  Or maybe one of their guys shortarms, better yet, airballs a free throw into a crowd of waving, screaming, stomping students.

The game progresses and as the scoreboard hits 0:00 with the home team - the major underdog - ahead!  For all their hard work and sweat, the players celebrate on the court.  Why would anyone expect the students to act any differently?  Let them loose!  Where the professional game and the college game differ is the players are being mobbed by their classmates.  

Naturally, the problem is for the safety of the group of visitors.  Mike Krzyzewski (whose team has been on the receiving end of more floor rushes than anyone else) has expressed concern for his players’ safety.  One idea is to, in the waning seconds, escort the losing club and have security make sure the remaining players on the floor get off safely.  In the past this hasn’t been an issue.  Like in the past boarding an airplane wasn’t an issue.

Just as a very small number of people seem to have ruined it for the overwhelming majority, we now have issues at basketball games.  These “sore winners” feel it necessary to verbally abuse the visitors at exactly a time that all they want to do is get into their locker room with their own people.  Of course, there’s a chance tempers would flare and the situation escalate.  Or the perpetrator, perhaps fortified with liquid courage and feeling the “strength in numbers” behind him, might just act beyond foolish and cause an incident.  Even if Mike’s proposal to guard the visiting team were put into effect, there would be no accounting for the game in which the outcome was decided by a last second shot - a make by the home squad or a miss by the favored visitors.

I’ve been involved with quite a few such “storming the Bastille” situations - on both sides.  At Fresno State we beat Tulsa in the finals of the WAC tournament (which was held on Fresno State’s home floor) to punch our dance card to the NCAAs.  At that time, Bill Self’s team had lost four games - three of them to us, this one by the largest margin - three.  During the regular season, we’d won at Tulsa by one and in Fresno by two.  Terrence Roberson hit his only three-pointer of the game on our last possession with the score tied, we got a stop and . . . batten down the hatches!  After addressing our guys in the locker room, Jerry Tarkanian went into theirs (the only time he ever entered an opponent’s locker room after a game) and said, “I only wish I could get our guys to play as hard as you guys do.”  He capped off the tribute with his trademark, “You’re the best.”

One year I was an assistant at USC, we had a magical run, finishing in the top 10 in the nation.  In the (then) Pac-10, we’d beaten UCLA both times and entered the final game (this was prior to a Pac-10 conference tournament) 14-3 in league play.  The Bruins were 15-2, meaning we’d gotten no help from anybody.  In order to win the championship, we needed to beat Arizona at home and then watch and hope Arizona State could defeat UCLA later that day.

We were down by one with seconds to play and ran a play for Harold Miner, our All-American.  Of course, the Wildcats weren’t going to let him score.  They doubled him, leaving our point guard open.  He took a 15-footer - and missed.  Our do-it-all combo guard, Rodney Chatman, picked up the rebound on the baseline about eight feet from the basket.  Because there was so little time, he simply flipped the ball at the basket.  Later (no replays for referees back then), ESPN’s cameras showed the ball had left the tips of his fingers with 0:00.1 tick left.  Good basket.  Game over.  Trojans win.

Our head coach, George Raveling, didn’t wait for the students to storm the floor.  He sprinted across the floor and dove into the student section!  UCLA beat ASU a couple hours later to dampen our parade but I’ll never forget George’s - and the students’ - reactions.

About three weeks prior to that thriller, we traveled to Pullman, our (George’s and my) old stompin’ grounds, he being the head coach there for 11 years and me being a graduate assistant and earning my master’s from Washington State.  We were neck-and-neck with UCLA for first place in the league.  WSU shot the lights out and beat us.  And their student body stormed the floor.  As we headed back to the locker room, George turned to me and said:

“I can’t believe it, Jack.  A team storming the court after beating USC in basketball.  We’ve finally arrived.”

After inexplicably allowing the Ravens’ Jacoby Jones to get behind . . . everybody, the Broncos found themselves in a tie game.  It should never have happened.  Denver was up seven and in the proper defense.  It’s just that Rahim Moore misjudged Joe Flacco’s Hail Mary and Jones hauled in the ball, underthrown as it was.

Still, there were 41 seconds left in the game.  And the Broncos were at home and had . . . Peyton Manning.  The Broncos’ coaching staff decided the best move was to kneel down and take their chances in overtime.  Then the Ravens won the toss and, of course, took the ball.  If they scored a touchdown, the game would have been over.  Imagine how the fan base would have reacted to the “take a knee” decision then!

But the Ravens didn’t score and Denver got the ball, needing only a field goal to move on to the conference championship game.  Manning, then, did the unthinkable.  He threw an interception.  A pick.  In (almost) field goal territory.  Sure enough, it didn’t take long for Baltimore to kick the game winner, ending the dream season too early for the Bronco faithful.

The post game phone lines were lit and more were holding.  “Why did we take a knee with 41 seconds to go?  Peyton had just driven us for a score on the last series?  We only needed a couple (few) first downs.  Peyton had more than enough time.  Our guy should have ended it with a kick.”  It’s surprising a riot or two didn’t occur.  The entire Bronco Nation was up in arms over coach John Fox’s cowardly call with 41 seconds to go.

The guy who saved Denver from mass destruction was the very same who gave them their greatest thrills.  John Elway, at yesterday’s press conference, spoke like a true football man.  He talked about how stunned the Broncos were, the look in their eyes after the Jones’ TD and how taking a knee was the right move.

What the average fan seldom takes into consideration is that, although Peyton Manning has performed miracles on several previous occasions, can anyone imagine if the Broncos had not taken a knee and Manning threw an interception similar to the one he did minutes later?  The second guessers would have had a field day.

Jocelyn Murray summed up a situation like this best when she said:

“Do not bother yourself with what ifs.”

When I decided (hoped) to become a college coach, one of the reasons I did was because I felt a coach could have more of an impact on a player than a teacher can have on a student.  I noticed this was true in the high school in which I was employed (which, coincidentally, happened to be the same high school I attended).  The kid is coming to me, the coach, to do something he wanted to do, as opposed to coming to me, the math teacher, for something he had to do.  Other thrills that inevitably accompany a college coaching career also enter into the decision but those are more an ancillary part of the experience. “Big games,” for one, are included among these thrills.

Putting together a winning streak is quite thrilling but, depending on where you’re working, the definition of a winning streak can vary greatly.  That’s why ending a long winning streak is probably more gratifying.  You have only a limited amount of time to get it accomplished e.g. 40 minutes, and if you succeed, it’s over!  And there’s never a doubt who did it.

Baylor’s Lady Bears had its 42-game winning streak snapped by the Stanford Cardinal (is there such a thing as a Lady Cardinal, especially when it stands for a color - or a tree?) last night in an early season tournament in Hawaii.  Everyone talks about parity in college basketball but that argument falls to pieces when the starting lineups are announced and only one team has Brittany Griner.  I’m not quite old enough to remember George Mikan but I’m just a year younger than Lew Alcindor, the center from Power Memorial HS who set scholastic winning streaks before enrolling at UCLA and refusing to lose there too.

Bill Walton was a dominant UCLA center after the fellow who subsequently became Kareem Abdul Jabbar graduated and UCLA continued to put streaks together.  Most notably, the 88-game winning streak that Notre Dame and its young coach Digger Phelps ended.  While the Bruins didn’t have as powerful force in the middle, they continued to win at a remarkable pace, especially in the friendly confines of their home court, Pauley Pavilion.

They had gone 98 games at home without a loss, a streak that continued after John Wooden had retired as coach.  Gene Bartow was the man who followed the legend and, as he later would admit, he never enjoyed winning at such a great rate less than the two years he spent at Westwood.  It was 1975 and I was a lowly graduate assistant at the University of Oregon.

I arrived on the Ducks’ campus after three other GA years (two at Washington State and one at the University of Vermont).  I made $1550 each year I was at WSU, a raise from the $1000 I got for 1972-73 school year at UVM.  Both schools also paid my tuition for grad school, something I couldn’t have cared less about at the time but appreciated a great deal as I got older (matured).  All three of the seasons before arriving in Eugene had produced losing campaigns.  The Ducks were in the same league as WSU (at that time, the Pac-8) so I understood how good they were going to be during that 1975-76 season.

It seemed as though I brought bad luck with me as we suffered a couple of early upsets (Duquesne was one in particular I can recall), knocking us out of the Top 20.  We opened Pac-8 play (the Arizona schools, nor other imposters weren’t in the league yet) at home against the mighty Bruins.  Everyone in our locker room was absolutely certain we were going to knock off the Bruins.  With just seconds to go, our superstar guard Ronnie Lee poked the ball away from one of their guys to one of ours who laid the ball in the basket, putting us up one.  A late, phantom whistle - foul on Ronnie - not only took away the basket and kept us down one, but put them on the free throw line for a 1-and-1 (no double bonus back then either) and it was Ronnie’s fifth foul. 

Mac Court (our arena back then) was rockin’.  You couldn’t hear yourself think it was so loud.  Naturally, their guy missed the free throw and our back up guard let one go from the side of half court that looked like it was going to bank straight in.  Instead, it banked - and rimmed the hoop - before coming out.  We’d lost our conference opener by one.

A month later we had to make the trip south to play USC on Friday and UCLA on Saturday.  After defeating the Trojans, we read in the paper (there was no Internet then and the information super highway was a simple road under construction.  We did see a press release that the Bruins had a 98-game home winning streak.  The sting of the earlier one-point loss hadn’t gone away yet.  When the word got around about their 98-game winning streak, you’d never seen a bunch of more confident guys - ready to play.

Bottom line: we were up 30-12 at the half.  Only because they hit three deeeeeeep jumpers (no three-point shot then either) did they score double figures in the first half.  They made a brief run, very early in the second half but not nearly enough.  We beat them 65-45.  Maybe the most remarkable thing about the game was with 7 minutes to go and us comfortably ahead, their fans started leaving!  Talk about a spoiled group.  Their fans couldn’t even sit through one game out of 100 (they won the next one after us) they didn’t win?

To this day, whenever any of us get together, the UCLA game at Pauley always comes up.  It must be the old American adage (just kidding for those of you ultra-sensitive schmucks):

“It’s fun to win but it’s funner to screw someone else up.”

Early reports left no doubt the Zen Master was returning to ring up another.  Mike D’Antoni might have been mentioned but less than Harry S was in ‘48.  Sure enough, the headline writers got it wrong again.  How and why are left to insiders.  Some say Phil overplayed his hand, requesting (demanding) a piece of the organization, others say his exit last time (plus other lack of human connection occurrences) got under Jim Buss’ skin so much, the younger Buss reveled in saying no.  Of course, being a protected, some may say, spoiled child, he had Mitch Kupchak deliver the news.

Whatever the case, all the players seemed to be excited in getting Phil back and held nothing back with their praise of the apparent move.  Naturally, Steve Nash was ecstatic.  Kobe was even smiling.  Now that the newest news is out, everybody seems to feel the same way.  Kobe’s answer to the switch was the slickest.

He claimed when ownership asked him (following the Brown dismissal), his choice was actually D’Antoni.  He had no idea Jackson would be available.  Then, when it was announced that Phil wanted the job, Kobe said of course that was the guy he wanted.  Incredibly political, probably 95% true (the other 5% was in case Coach K was in the mix).  He said he got to know D’Antoni from the Olympic experience and he’s unbelievably competitive - which is right up Kobe’s alley.

So who is the biggest loser?  The fans?  Forget them.  If the team wins, they’ll all say they were in the “We Like Mike Club” all along.  If they lose, they’ll be as angry as . . . if Jackson coached and the team lost.

Listen to Todd Musberger, Phil’s agent, who is slamming the club for offering his client the job and awakening him from relaxing night’s sleep to say they were going in a different direction.  Phil has been known to have slept with management, so to speak, but there were no indications anyone else was awoken when Kupchak called.  Musberger is saying there were no outrageous demands made by his client, just that they had a handshake deal Phil had until Monday, i.e. about 12 hours later to decide.  Now, Phil. the master media manipulator (remember how he’d communicate his displeasure with his players through the media?), is saying he really wanted the job.

Really, does anyone in their right mind think the Lakers would say, “OK, go ahead, you’re our coach.  We’ll hammer out the details at a later time”?  Give him that much of an upper hand?  C’mon, Todd, even you can’t buy that one.  The real loser here is the agent because:

“0% of nuthin’s nuthin.”