Illinois didn't win last night. Actually, it had no business
coming back and almost giving itself a chance to win in the final
minutes. It had no inside game to speak of. When it mattered most
it couldn't connect its three-point shots, which was only fair
because without inside scoring no team deserves to win in
basketball. North Carolina reasserted its huge "physical"
advantage, made a key steal, and that was that. It had controlled
most of the game, and clearly was the deserving winner.
If anyone hugely cared. There was an oddness to the game's
"feel," no doubt generated in part by the Chapel Hill team's
obvious superiority. Add to that the normal petering out that
affects both teams in the finals of a long and (mentally) tiring
march through the tournament. Finally, maybe everyone was
discombobulated by the nonstop yapping of CBS's announcers, Billy
Packer and somebody named Jim. They talked as if each would get
paid by the word, with a bonus going to the one who outmouthed the
other.
Radio announcers usually work solo as the listeners' eyes and
ears. There was a time when TV sports announcers didn't need to say
half as much (one reason why it was never fun to have Vin Scully
doing televised games). Now it's the other way around. Who are you
going to believe? Your eyes or the announcers screaming at you from
the opening tip. You'd think they were coaches riding the referees
in the hopes of a favorable call somewhere down the road.
Oddly, only when the game got close in the final minutes did the
CBS team slow its delivery. In a moment of potential drama, our
dynamic duo had no cliches left on its bench.
For what it's worth, or should I say not worth, there was
nothing political about the event. Dean Smith, the former North
Carolina coach nonpareil, was caught on camera during Saturday's
semifinals. But no one, not even Bonnie Bernstein, mentioned that
Smith is a Tar Heel state super-liberal. Early in the tournament a
Cincinnati player by the name of Jihad Muhammad played on national
TV against Kentucky. No one wondered how a player with such a name
could focus on his game during the War on Terror. Needless to say,
Rome last night could have been galaxies away.
What if Georgetown and Villanova had played instead? As Catholic
schools, would they have postponed their showdown, much as places
like Italy and Poland have suspended all extraneous activities
until after the Pope's funeral? We're not a Catholic country, so of
course there's no reason to expect any comparable gestures on our
part. Twenty-four years ago, Indiana and North Carolina played the
for the NCAA championship the day President Reagan was nearly
killed by John Hinckley. There was talk that maybe the game would
or should be postponed. After Indiana's victory, one of its top
players was asked whether he would have agreed with a decision not
to play. He replied that much as he and his teammates were upset by
what had happened to the president, it was important to play the
game, because "we had a championship on the line." In America, the
show must go on. Indeed, recall that Illinois's head coach lost his
mother at the start of this year's March Madness. He didn't miss a
game.
Recall too that Georgetown and Villanova did play for the NCAA
championship 20 years ago this year. HBO recently ran a special
hour on that game, in which the heavy underdog Villanova performed
as perfectly as one could to defeat a titanic Georgetown team. If
Illinois had had Ed Pinckney last night, maybe it would have won.
The HBO tape showed something else. Trunks were shorter and there
was no shot clock or three-point line. 'Nova triumphed because it
consistently hit the intermediate range jump shots that no one
takes anymore.
One thing is certain: twenty years from now no one will be
showing replays of last night's game. Which doesn't mean Billy and
Jim's motor mouths won't be disturbing the peace somewhere
else.
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