The Madness Edition

The first Thursday and Friday of the NCAA basketball tournament are two of the greatest days of sports anywhere. The first Saturday and Sunday are the next best two. The second round games are generally better played games but there is nothing quite the same as seeing a 1 or 2 seed on the ropes against a tenacious underdog in their first round game. The First Thursday was the most exciting day of basketball from what we hear. We were hard at work but apparently there were buzzer beaters and several one point victories. Iowa State has already departed the tournament for many of our pools and no one had Georgia State over Baylor. The great state of Texas was eliminated in the opening round. The University of California at Irvine Anteaters took the storied Louisville Cardinals to the last possession with their first invitation. We were sorry to see them lose but were glad they covered the nine points. UCLA beat another Cinderella on their way to the second weekend. The underdog scraps away and the higher seed starts to sweat being upset in the first round and being on sports center for eternity. The underdog might be on television for the first and only time in their career. Duke has several titles but there early round exits have been more noteworthy as well. Kansas won the title in 2009 but there second round upset by Stanford last year is in every discussion about the brackets this year. There is nothing like these first two days anywhere. The Yard does take exception to how the rounds are now credited for NCAA tournament history. With the recent addition of the play in games, the first round has now become the second round. So any team that makes the 64 team draw is already in the second round. It is always sounds better on the resume for a coach to declare he coached a team into the second round of the tournament. It sounds better than saying you made the tournament. It sounds like you won a tournament game. If you win your first game that is a second round game, you are into the third round. The poor coaches who get to the play in game and lose are in tournament historical limbo for performance. Technically, they made the dance but not the first round. Because there is not a first round but they did not make it anyways. The victor of the First Four bypasses the first round that isn’t and goes straight into the second round. Got that? So technically, the first round is now just a memory and everyone gets a pass to the second round as long as you win your first four game. It is 25 years since Bo Kimble lead the Hank Gather-less LMU Lions into the NCAA tournament. The Lions played at a frenetic pace that has never been seen since that record setting season in 1990. Paul Westhead was the mad scientist mixing a brew he could never repeat. It was even more mythical in light of the grinding play of college basketball today. After Gather’s tragic passing, the Lions rallied with the city and in front of an underdog nation. LMU scorched the defending National Champion Michigan Wolverines 149-115. It is still an NCAA record for points scored in a game. Jeff Fryer was 11 of 15 from 3-point range setting another lasting record. It is rare to score 115 and lose by 34. Loyola would race through the tournament before they ran into another team of destiny-the UNLV Running Rebels. The Reb’s cruised to a 131-101 in the regional final over LMU on their way to the only national title Las Vegas has ever claimed. It was the last time LMU would participate in March Madness. The 1990 Rebel team that dispatched LMU is still revered in this town. They are more revered for dispatching Duke for the title but they beat them both by thirty. Jerry Tarkanian was their iconic coach and fearless leader. Those Running Rebels are the only national champion Nevada has ever had in a major sport. They beat down the hated Duke Blue Devils by 103-73 score in the championship game. It was a brilliant game pitting a rebel against a legend. The Rebel owned that night. Coach K had never been beaten by that wide a margin in any game let alone the national final. The 1990 UNLV team was the last team to win the title that was not from a traditional power conference. After winning the title, UNLV would enter the 1991 season undefeated before eventually losing to Duke in the national semifinal. Larry Johnson, Stacey Augmon and Greg Anthony were all seniors on the 1991 team and NBA first round picks. Larry Johnson won the Wooden award. He is the only former junior college player to win the award. Tarkanian has a well-deserved statue in front of the Thomas and Mack Center and streets named in his honor here in the desert. Tark would take on UCLA, the NCAA and all comers with his successful teams through the years. He started at Pasadena City College for his first college job. He quickly progressed to CSULB that was known as Long Beach State at that time. Long Beach would be the first college basketball games a Yardling could attend. Our allegiance was to UCLA but who could get seats to see the legendary Bruins in 1970-75. 49er tickets were available to almost all of the games and Tarkanian fielded exciting teams that were fun to watch. Compared to the stoic Wooden teams, Tark had creative teams with personality. In 1971, Long Beach took the eventual national champion Bruins to the final buzzer in a 57-55 after leading by 12 at halftime. UCLA had Wickes, Rowe, Patterson and Bibby. Long Beach had Ratleff and Trapp. Tark would get into Wooden’s head with his aggressive, unpredictable coaching style. Wooden never scheduled a regular season game with this university that was thirty miles away. With his hang dog eyes, short sleeve shirts and a damp towel hanging from his mouth, Tarkanian was Goofus to Wooden’s Gallant. Wooden had the titles and the pedigree. UCLA had skeletons in those alumni closets in those heady days but it was Tarkanian that the NCAA investigated. Tarkanian realized he would never have success coaching in the Legend’s shadow in Southern California and the alleged pedigree of NCAA basketball before the current era of “one and dones”. Everyone was in for four years unless they flunked out, were injured or could show financial hardship. Hardship was not an easy argument even for the most impoverished athletes. Tark would find hardship ballers who wanted a chance and would invest in their future through his vision. He would shepherd, mentor and father his unwashed and un-recruited players. Everyone was a baller but they all might not have been students or choir boys. Many made it to the NBA and were successful but people only seemed to remember the problem children. There was only one photo that surfaced with his players in the Jacuzzi with a known big time gambler and there was Lloyd Daniels. Of course, this was before the telephone let alone the camera phone. Tark might not have lasted in this time, space, and megapixels. Tark regularly recruited in the JuCo ranks. He gave kids a chance and built teams out of these castoffs from the Division One elite. It is amazing to think in these years of one and dones that Tarkanian was ostracized for bringing in Junior College players who stayed for two years. The NCAA constant harassment eventually ended with Tarkanian winning a judgment against the dastardly non-profit. It was wonderful to see the basketball HOF elect Tark to the hall this past year. He barely made it before his recent passing. We can only hope baseball can act with compassion with Pete Rose. Basketball is dominating the Yard house and Mrs. Yard is certainly not as invested. We expect Kentucky to win as do most pools. Calipari has shown an amazing ability to coach freshman to victory. This Kentucky team is exceptional and very well could be one of the best college teams ever. Kentucky is a great team in an average conference. The SEC is a formidable football conference. The fourteen team SEC had four qualifiers for the tournament. Kentucky is the consensus number one seed for the entire dance. The fourteen team SEC had four basketball teams in the tournament. It was remarkable for the Wildcats to finish the regular season undefeated. But the SEC is not a remarkable basketball conference. Kentucky is the only team from the SEC still in the tournament. The other ten teams in the conference are getting ready for spring football. Kentucky is very good but they went into OT to beat Ole Miss at home. They needed two OT’s to beat a Texas A&M team that did not make the tournament. The Wildcats gave up 21 offensive rebounds to an undersized Cincinnati team Saturday afternoon. Arizona and Wisconsin are not undersized. There are more stalwart challenges ahead for the Wildcats than anything they have played in months. The Wildcats are large and talented but also young and untested. They are not going to go down early or without a fight but they may not make to Indy let alone cut down nets. It is not always easy to predict how confident youth might respond when everything you have worked for over a year is challenged. Calipari is a maverick, a villain and a genius. He has cashed a few karma cards and he has never had a program go unpunished by the NCAA under his leadership. OT: It is hard to close the edition without a comment on the Bruins stunning victory over former Bruin Coach Larry Brown and the SMU Mustangs. SMU was the lower seed and a four point favorite. Many contended UCLA did not belong in the tournament. The Yard went to several Bruin games this season and it was a team in transition. They graduated five freshmen and sophomores to the NBA from last year’s squad. The Bruins were steady at the start of the game and took a four point halftime lead. They surged out to a ten point second half lead and looked like the team that went 15-1 at home this year. From that inflection point, the Mustangs went on a 19-0 making the Bruins look like the little cubs who once trailed Kentucky 31-7 at the half this season. And then, a season of tough moments, distilled into 1:10 of dogged determination lead by the coach’s son Bryce Alford. It was a controversial call but he was 8 out of 10 from trey at the time. The Ref did him and the Bruins a solid.