Jack’s Blog

Every day the list of those underclassmen who are making themselves eligible for the NBA draft lengthens.  While nearly every person I’ve talked to, listened to or read has said the national championship game between Michigan and Louisville was terrific, nearly all of them thought this year’s March Madness was one of the poorest in terms of exciting, well-played games.  Emphasis on well-played.  Maybe this year was an aberration in terms of all we’ve come to expect from March Madness or maybe the absurd number of early exits has finally caught up with the college game.  If that actually were the case, the deterioration should have happened well before now but there’s no questioning this year’s NCAA tournament was as poorly played as any in memory.

One reason could be that, usually, experience makes offenses and defenses work better.  Those teams who are composed mainly of seniors, some fifth and sixth year seniors or guys who are as old as 24 or 25, are more mature, understand the intricacies better and have greater chemistry than a group of freshmen who just got thrown together and have played a total of thirty or so games, barring injuries.  How, then, a cynic or a fan might ask, could Kentucky have won the national championship a couple years ago?

Simple.  John Calipari is a master at leading and motivating a young group, getting them all to buy into his philosophy.  However, here is a life lesson that needs to be learned and never forgotten: Above all else, talent wins out.  He recruited them, motivated them and coached them.  Had Nerlens Noel not suffered a seasoning ending injury, we might have seen those results for a second straight season.  Can one man mean that much to a team?  For that answer watch the Lakers from here on out.  Especially if they make the playoffs.  Can anyone even fathom how good Kentucky would have been, forget this year’s incoming class, if the team that won it all - relatively easily - had all returned to UK for another run?  And another?  I started my college coaching career in 1972.  That was what UCLA did.  Beat everybody to death and recruited to fill the spots left by graduation.  Simple formula that worked for quite a while.

Undoubtedly, the early entry rule changed the player’s thought process but what really flipped the college game was the color green.  The talk of giving a college kid a stipend is nice - for the good players who are planning on going to school for four years anyway.  Does anybody really think a stipend is going to change a kid’s mind when he’s looking at the possibility of a six or seven figure contract?  If he can’t make the right decision there, maybe he’s not smart enough to be in college.

Louisville’s Russ Smith has declared for the draft even though most who make up mock drafts have him going mid- to late-second round, meaning no guaranteed money.  You think he’d change his mind if the NCAA passed a $300/month stipend?  $400?  $500?  Maybe, as the old joke goes, “he loves college but hates class.”  What compounds the problem is the timing of when to leave.  OK, most guys are going to go as soon as they can.  There are others, though, who realize they need some more seasoning and another year (or more) under their current “professor” would make them a much better and more ready prospect.  And that’s where the timing dilemma comes in.

Take, for example, this year.  I don’t pretend to know even one foreign prospect.  I leave that up to my man Franny Frascilla who can tell you all of them.  As far as the college players who comprise this year’s crop, there’s not one who doesn’t have “holes” in his game?  The consensus number one pick is Nerlens Noel who’s intercollegiate career was limited to 24 games.  Even if a team is comfortable with the brief showing of his considerable skills, there has to be a concern regarding the injury.  One, did it heal properly and two, is he injury-prone, e.g. Grant Hill, Darko Milicic or the two guys no one can ever forget - Greg Oden and Sam Bowie?

The rest?  In no particular order (since different mock drafts have them in different order), the guys who are consensus top picks are: Ben McLemore, Marcus Smart, Victor Oladipo, Otto Porter, Anthony Bennett, Trey Burke, Shabazz Muhammed, Cody Zeller, Alex Len.  Let’s not forget Isaiah Austin.  He hits home because he played with my younger son, Alex, back in the 5th grade AAU days.  What makes it particularly difficult when I evaluate him is that he looks exactly the same as he did when he was ten!  From the long, lanky arms and legs to the same goggles, it’s like watching him through a magnifying glass.  There is little doubt he’s going to be a great one just as there’s little doubt he’s not NBA-ready.  Ready to start banging his slender body with the 25-30 year old men who’ve been in the league for several years, taking advantage of all the professional strength trainers and facilities.  I’m sure Baylor’s facilities are first-class, but if they were placed side by side, I’m certain the state-of-the-art NBA equipment is far superior.  Plus, the NBA isn’t limited as to how much time - or when - coaches can work with players, as do NCAA-affiliated institutions.

Having watched each of the above guys, some on multiple occasions, my belief is none of these guys are NBA-ready.  Yet they’re going to get picked high.  Why?  Because, if they all stayed in college and worked on their skills, strength and stamina . . . here is what the draft would look like: Mason Plumlee, CJ McCollum, Mike Muscala, Jeff Withey, Erick Green, Nate Wolters, Jackie Carmichael, Solomon Hill, Michael Snaer, Brandon Paul, Eric Murphy, Pierre Jackson, Richard Howell, Isaiah Canaan, Trevor Mbakwe, Rodney Williams and a whole lot of Franny’s guys from overseas.  And unless Fran has uncovered some real gems, many of those names listed would be lottery picks.  Each of those players are good prospects, but if the thought of your favorite team using a lottery pick on any of them gives you a warm a feeling, check your pants leg because you might have just . . .

There is another reason guys leave school early and this one you won’t find anywhere but right here.  My firm belief is that the real reason people go to college is not to get an education.  The real reason is:

“These kids go to college to improve their station in life, and with what the NBA is paying - even if their careers are short-lived - it is a considerable improvement of their station in life.”

Heading into their match up with Michigan, Billy Donovan, a coach who’s noted for details or, as we’ve learned during the media time out, logistics, needed to come up with a game plan for his Florida team.  One strategy would be to pressure the Wolverines and try to force as many turnovers as they could so the Gators would have numerous opportunities to score in the open court.  That had been their usual plan throughout the season.  Another method would be to make it a half court game so that the Gators could take advantage of their superior size and pound it inside because UM usually played with four guards and only one big man.

Donovan chose the one that exploited the inside mismatch.  On paper it was an excellent philosophy - except for the fact that his inside guys weren’t as noted for their back-to-the-basket skills as much as they were for facing up and offensive rebounding.  I wonder how much time Billy himself worked with those inside guys, explaining how vital it was they scored (as much as I’d like to think players listen to an assistant - having been one for 30 years - I fully understand their antennae tune in more sharply when the head man speaks).  Not pressing the action defensively as much as they could have meant the greater majority of their point production had to come from the “bigs.”

It might have been a moot point because had his team extended its defense to attempt to create turnovers against Michigan, the Wolverines’ guards might have broken the pressure.  Then any of their three point shooters (of which they have four on the floor during most possessions) would have been knocking down shots - scoring in threes.

Basically, there are two philosophies in forming a game plan: 1) if we go to our strength(s), will that be good enough for us to win or 2) would it better to attack their weaknesses?  Naturally, there are others but for the most they’re derivatives of the two above.  Unfortunately, the Gators looked much more reactive on defense and, while they were getting the ball inside, their bigs weren’t scoring, mainly because they’re not true back-to-the-basket players.  Before you know it, they were down a couple.  Touchdowns.  It was 13-0 and it only got worse.  UF attempted to rally but every mistake was magnified, e.g. fouling a three point shooter at the end of the half which thwarted the minor momentum they’d built.

Billy Donovan has currently been to three consecutive Elite Eights.  Florida fans might be disappointed they haven’t gone farther.  Well, Gator Nation, Ben Howland is available.  Oh yeah, he committed the same crime at UCLA (although his were Final Four “failures.”  For now, the Florida faithful can take solace in the fact they seem to be stuck with Billy the Kid - the same guy they cheered when he changed his mind and reneged on the offer he’d accepted from the Orlando Magic.

When a game between relative equals starts out like the UF-UM game did yesterday, it tends to balance out after a while or, as George Raveling used to say:

“The game will return to reality.”

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.”

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.”

Daily attendance at a workout facility has become a goal of mine.  Being retired, I’ve run out of reasons not to go.  Although there have been occasional absences, I’ve been pretty faithful.  Usually, I’ll go with a friend of mine.

He told me his routine was to spend 10-15 minutes in the sauna (which he claims loosens up the muscles), then do some cardio.  He was a workout veteran.  Who was I to argue?  Initially, we did the treadmill, walking side by side - solving problems, both locally and nationally.  When my back began to act up (again), my buddy graciously agreed to switch to the recumbent bike.  The side by side arrangement, as well as the taking care of our country’s numerous issues (if the powers would only listen), continued.

The gym we attend is, as the trend has become, gi-normous.  And it’s one of four of the same name facilities in our area - with a fifth under construction.  Acres and acres of equipment, weights, machines, “class rooms,” pools, sauna, steam - shocking to me.  I find just as astounding how many people attend.  Some might consider me a bit out of touch with what people are doing with their spare time - for the past couple decades.      

In any case, yesterday my workout partner and I hit the gym and did our obligatory sauna time.  Normally, when we come out and walk the length of the gym to our bikes, we pick two from a group of five on the right side -as opposed to the five on the left side.  Let’s see if I can explain this scenario without confusing the readers.  Those of you who still remain.

As we approach the far wall, it is split into three areas: the left third is sectioned off for classes, the right third is weight machines.  In the middle are aerobic machines - ten recumbent bikes separated in half by a group of ellipticals.  Mounted high on the wall are three big-screen televisions, the one on the left tuned into ABC, the middle one on either CNN or Fox (how and when they figure that out must be a great story) and ESPN on the right.  With those options, you can probably guess where a couple of retired coaches would sit- and you’d be right.  And are we.

Except for yesterday.  ESPN was airing the Nationwide Kentucky 300.  I know next to nothing about auto racing.  In fact, believe it or not, if I get into a car that’s a stick shift, you won’t have to go very far to catch me.  So, at the risk of upsetting those fans, I would rather watch a debate between Michael Moorer and Ann Coulter on the qualities they admire in each other, i.e. dead air, than watching what was then on ESPN.  The UCLA-Oregon State football game was being aired on ABC.  So we went to the other end, where there were two unoccupied bikes but they weren’t next to each other.  This would hardly be fair to Fresno and the United States.

I saw a lady was reading.  “Hey,” I thought, “she might not be using the calorie or mileage counter and would be willing to take one of the unoccupied bikes.”  Drenched with sweat (only because of the sauna), I approached her and asked if she would mind moving so my friend and I could sit next to each other.  She said she actually was using them but would be done in only three more minutes.  Could we wait?  Before I could answer, she abruptly said, “You can have them now.  It’s too late.  I’ve already begun to sweat.”  I felt bad that she was leaving and said, “I didn’t mean to hurry you.”

“Oh no, that’s OK.  I didn’t want to sweat.”  She smiled, got up and walked away.

I looked at my buddy and said:

“I thought the purpose of going to the gym was to sweat.”

Unless someone is a true Pollyanna, college athletics has always had a sordid element to it.  What transpired at Miami is very similar to what’s been happening on college campuses for 30-40 years.  Probably longer.

The nature of recruiting is to convince a prospect that your school is best for him (or her).  Gaining the prospect’s trust is the key.  While explaining the academic excellence and unparalleled opportunities following graduation should be foremost, if anyone thinks getting the kid to like you doesn’t rank number one, they wouldn’t keep their job very long.

Wherever prospects wind up, you can bet they were made to feel special.  One reason is because of the media coverage recruiting gets.  Fans know who the new guys on the block are and most just want to get to know them better.  There are some college athletes like Tim Tebow, A.C. Green and Reggie White.  The other end are similar to Joe Namath, Terrell Pryor and Charles Barkley.  Like it or not, kids are more influenced by the latter group than the former.  Prospects often discover they can receive favorable treatment which, occasionally, means swag.  Having “stuff” is a status symbol.  Not always cars and thousands but, because of the NCAA rule book, lesser items that are deemed illegal by NCAA rules.

Some boosters go over the top.  Nevin Shapiro is just the latest.  The knowledgeable hoops junkie remembers Sam Gilbert who was prominent with UCLA players during their magic run.  Just as Shapiro is doing time for an illegal activity, it was uncovered that Gilbert’s wealth was not derived from his construction company, but rather had connections to the drug world.

Of the numerous violations committed by Shapiro, the one that has people so shook up is that he allegedly paid for an abortion.  When I was a graduate assistant at a Pac-8 institution in the mid-70s, one of our players told me his buddy, a starter at UCLA, got his girlfriend pregnant.  He said Mr. Gilbert paid the abortion.  College kids getting girls pregnant is nothing new.  This blog is not making any judgments on abortion.

Until there are sweeping changes made in the NCAA, it looks as though we’ll have to take the outlook of Ulysses S. Grant:

“Live life the way it is, not the way you want it to be.”

My college coaching career began in 1972-73.  The following year, as a graduate assistant at Washington State, there was a 6′5″ second guard prospect from Los Angeles.  Our staff was certain he’d be a starter from the day he walked on campus until he graduated four years later.  We attended more of his games and showed more interest than any other school.  The strategy was working.  In recruiting terms, “we loved him and he loved us.”  At that time, there was only one signing date and it was in April of the prospect’s senior year.

There were no scholarship limitations back then.  UCLA heard we were recruiting him (no social media  or, even, cell phones in ‘74) and John Wooden (or someone sounding like John Wooden) called the youngster who committed to the Bruins the next day.  Sure enough, he signed with UCLA - and never played!  Sounding like?  Alabama football was notorious for having a coach who could impersonate Bear Bryant so that The Bear’s best friends couldn’t detect the imposter.

NCAA rules were changed and scholarship limitations were enacted.  Yeah, the initial reductions had nothing to do with Title IX (even though that law was passed in 1972).  What happened next in recruiting was trying to “outwork” people.  This meant calling your top prospect(s) more, sending more letters and, more than anything, going to more of his (their) games.  Certain schools hired assistant coaches who were, rather than first and foremost recruiters, recruiters only.  At that time, the University of New Mexico had an assistant coach rent an apartment in Petersburg, VA - and live there for the entire season - in an attempt to recruit Moses Malone.  Although he signed with Maryland, Moses never went to college, instead signing with the ABA’s Utah Stars.

This philosophy continued for the next decade-and-a-half until prospects and their parents complained to the NCAA the the recruiting process was out of control.  From 1987-2002 I was the assistant chairman of the Recruiting Committee for the coaches association.  Early in that period, our main charge was to come up with ideas and give recommendations to the NCAA Recruiting Committee.  By that time, scholarships had been reduced to 15.

We took into account what the NCAA-formed Student-Athlete Advisory Committee (made up of male and female athletes in all sports) explained to the parent organization.  Their message?  Too much pressure!  Calls were cut to once per week, beginning no sooner than the summer of the prospect’s junior year.  Kids were telling stories of some coaches calling as early as 6:00am, while others would call around midnight.  As for written correspondence, only questionnaires were allowed to younger prospects.

More significantly, there was the creation of a recruiting calendar, certain times when coaches were allowed to be off campus.  Some of those periods were designated as “evaluation” meaning coaches could only watch prospects, while other were called “contact” periods in which coaches were allowed at games and practices but also communicate afce-to-face with prospects and their parents.  “Quiet” periods allowed prospects to visit campus but restricted coaches to their own campuses.  “Dead” periods prohibited coaches from leaving campus as well as prospects and families visiting them.  This action also reduced costs which had been spiraling out of control (imagine that concept).

To top it all off, an “early signing” period - an eight-day window from the first Wednesday in November through the second - was established (more on that in a future blog).  Parents rejoiced.  Finally, some normalcy to the recruiting process.

Coaches, as they are prone to do, loudly voiced their displeasure.  “How are we supposed to get to know kids with such limited recruiting time?” was the main criticism.  They had a point. Current statistics show more and more student-athletes are transferring.  So what’s the NCAA to do?  Some say the main problem is no matter how hard anyone may try:

“You can’t legislate equality.”

It wasn’t but a couple of days after the national championship game before the talk of which teams would make up next year’s Final Four.  Talk radio is a great invention.  It allows fans to feel like they’re really a part of the college basketball scene.  There have always been bar stools, but this means of pontification is actually like being interviewed!

If you’ve ever listened to talk radio, you quickly realize there is no IQ test for either the hosts or callers - especially the callers.  Sports is so fascinating and it’s so easy to get caught up in the excitement that if shows were recorded and played back months later, people would hear what was said and swear the tapes were doctored.  Nobody could be that foolish.

A couple of examples: one guy said he was putting together his Final Four for next year and the first, and only, name he mentioned was . . . Butler.  Now, I read where Brad Stevens was quoted as saying that on their flight from Houston to Indianapolis, he was formulating all that he needed to do to prepare for next year.  He followed that by saying that he hadn’t been contacted by any other school.  In other words, the statement was more about his desire to remain at Butler than it was how he planned on getting his squad to New Orleans.

Another one said that Butler had a better chance to get back to the Final Four next season than did UConn.  The thinking was that UConn would lose more players to the NBA draft than the Bulldogs would.  Consider that Matt Howard, Shawn Vanzant and Zach Hahn graduate and there’s probably a better than 50-50 chance that Shelvin Mack enters the draft.  Do the remaining players on their roster spell Final Four?  Since most of the really good players signed last November and, while the Bulldogs bring in a solid class of four (two posts, a wing and a point), to pick them to be among the last four standing is a real stretch.

The reason they made it back this year was because of the experienced guys who were returning, not their 2010 recruiting class.  Ronald Nored and Andrew Smith are a nice nucleus but to even dream about Butler being in next year’s Final Four, ask yourself this question: Exactly how many teams have gone to three consecutive Final Fours?  Face it, the optimism behind the prediction is mainly due to the coaching prowess of Stevens and while he would like to think a third straight trip is within reach (after all, the first two have already been accomplished), he knows full well it’s a pipe dream - no matter how stellar a coach he is.  The days of winning two games - in your geographic region, a la the UCLA teams of John Wooden - are long gone.

As for UConn, true, they will undoubtedly lose Kemba Walker - and maybe even Jeremy Lamb - but Alex Oriakhi, Roscoe Smith and Tyler Olander are a nice frontcourt to build around and Shabazz Napier, defensively, and Ryan Boatwright, an incoming freshman scoring machine (in the image of Kemba himself, sans the strength) make for a formidable pair of guards.  Plus, you can be sure there are superior players sitting out, or who served as reserves on this year’s club, who are more likely to make an impact in D-I than their counterparts at Butler.

In addition, no one expected Jim Calhoun’s squad to accomplish what it did this year.  Much was made of the Huskies winning it all after being picked tenth in the pre-season Big East polls.  Then again, they finished the regular season ninth!  Since Calhoun spun that miracle once (giving the Huskies their third national championship, all under Calhoun), don’t think for a minute that the people of Connecticut, heck, all of New England, don’t believe he won’t (shouldn’t) do it again.

If you have any doubts, listen to the callers already second guessing Bruce Bochy after the Giants started off slowly.

Does it even need to be said?  Coaching is all about:

“What have you done for me lately?”         

If ever there was a coach’s coach, that person was Jerry Tarkanian.  One night an audience member at his radio show asked Jerry why he became a coach.  He pondered his answer for a few moments and, while others in attendance thought he was trying to find the exact correct words, finally said, “It’s the only thing I could do.”  It’s also the only thing he ever wanted to do.

In all the years I’ve known him, I can honestly say I’ve never heard him criticize another coach.  Obviously, he thinks some coaches do a better job than others but he will applaud a coach he doesn’t know just as much as one of his cronies.  He truly appreciates what coaches have to do and the way they do it.  He has strong beliefs regarding certain areas of coaching but understands that other coaches can be successful employing different systems.  And, differences in philosophies and all, he admires them.

I was a little surprised when, on the final Jerry Tarkanian Show of this season, he assessed the play in this year’s March Madness as follows: “I don’t think the overall play has been very good this year.  The games have been close, and exciting, but they haven’t been well-played.”  Notice there was no criticizing the coaching, just the quality of play.

During Roy Williams’ emotional press conference following the Tarheels’ loss to Kentucky for a spot in the Final Four, he made the statement that if a person wasn’t involved with either team, then it was just a great college basketball game. I remember thinking how that wasn’t really the case.  There were more traveling violations, charges, unforced turnovers and bad shots in that game than in most any contest in which either UNC or UK was involved.

For my money (check my 3/20/11 blog), the best played game of the tournament (at least of those I watched) was the Florida-UCLA tilt.  The others, I agree with Tark, have been nail biters and fun to watch, but not especially works of art.  Unless the team you were rooting for won.  As Goethe said:

“We are never deceived; we deceive ourselves.”

Normally in the early rounds of the NCAA tournament, one team is, or at least plays, far superior to its opponent.  Of course, there still are close games.  None could have been too much closer than the double OT San Diego State-Temple contest or the down-to-the-wire Butler-Pitt “who was going to give the game to whom” thriller.  But for pure, well-played basketball - forgive me for the sensationalizing, but a game James Naismith would have used as a blueprint for the new sport he created - there hasn’t been one determined by sound, fundamental basketball as the competition staged yesterday between Florida and UCLA.

If every contest in every sport was executed in the manner that the Gators and Bruins did, watching sporting events would be the national past time.  That might be the case now, but if all games were composed of such talented players, performing their roles in as exciting and competent a manner as those two clubs did, every other means of entertainment would be no better than a very distant second.

Defensively, the teams switched ways to guard, seemingly because the individual and team play was so outstanding.  Miraculous blocked shots that thwarted near perfect offensive execution occurred more times than a spectator would hope to witness in a month of games - and when the defense couldn’t block a shot (or take a charge), the scoreboard changed due to efficiency of the offense.

As far as offense went, the use of pick & rolls (in Florida’s case, the double pick & roll, in which the dribbler uses a screen and then gets a second one), a maneuver that more and more coaches are using due to the difficulty teams have in guarding it, was extensive.  What made watching this set so different than in other games was the use of the other players, i.e. not only the ballhandler and the screener.  Also, and this could possibly be because I coached for 35 years, I appreciated the excellent technique used in feeding the post players.  Each team got a bundle of points inside the paint, something Gator coach Billy Donovan admitted at halftime his team needed to defend better due to the number of buckets the Bruins got in the first half.  It’s been said so many times that kids today don’t know how to move without the ball.  Yesterday, many points came via this route.

The game was well-coached (by two of the most successful in the business) and adjustments had to constantly be employed.  Players off the bench contributed better than they had all season.  The reason each coaching staff had to be at the top of their game was due, not only because of the skill level of the players, but because their shooting, moving, passing, rebounding and overall defense were exceptional.

Naturally, UCLA fans left disappointed but, looking back, they need to realize their guys played about as close to their potential as could have been expected, they just happened to run into a higher seed (probably meaning a team with more talent) on a day the level of intensity exhibited by their squad was matched by that of its opponent.

And, just so readers don’t think I noticed, Florida also had Erving Walker.

In a world of doubters and contraries, I’d expect many to disagree with my assessment of the game but as Confucius said:

“Everything has its beauty, but not everyone sees it.”