What’s the key to NCAA Tournament success?
By Pete DiPrimio
Knight Ridder Newspapers
Hello, class, and welcome to
How To Win Big In The NCAA
Tournament.
In today’s lesson, we’re going to
show how teams thrive under
March Madness pressure.
Talent, of course, is crucial.
Without good players, a team has
no chance.
Duke has dominated the college
basketball scene the last 10 seasons
with waves of NBA-caliber talent.
Last year, the Blue Demons won the
national title with Shane Battier
(last year’s sixth overall pick) and
Jason Williams (the likely No. 1
pick this year).
In 2000, Michigan State won
with a lineup that featured future
pros Mateen Cleaves (Sacramento)
and Morris Peterson (Toronto). In
1999, Connecticut earned the
championship with NBA picks
Richard Hamilton (Washington)
and Khalid El-Amin (Chicago).
And then there were the talent
rich Final Four teams that didn’t
win national titles, such as Arizona
last year (Jason Gardner, Gilbert
Arenas and Richard Jefferson),
North Carolina in 2000 (Joseph
Forte and Jason Capel) and Duke in
1999 (Battier and Elton Brand).
And who can forget Michigan’s
Fab Five team of 1992, which
reached the championship game
with five freshman starters, three of
whom — Jalen Rose, Chris Webber
and Juwan Howard — have be
come NBA stars.
But is a lineup of future NBA
players crucial to postseason suc
cess? It depends on who you talk to.
“You don’t have to have NBA
caliber guys to get to the Final Four,
but you do to win it,” Indiana
coach Mike Davis said. “You have
to have at least one. I haven’t
known a team to win it without an
NBA-caliber guy.”
Michigan State coach Tom Izzo has
made three straight Final Fours with
a roster loaded with future NBA play
ers. But he says that’s not enough.
“Sure, talent is a key,” Izzo said,
“but you need other intangibles.”
Perhaps the No. 1 intangible,
Purdue coach Gene Keady said, is
having players with desire.
“It has a lot to do with your
kids’ ambition to get to the Final
Four,” he said. “If you don’t have
players who want to get to the Fi
nal Four more than the coaches,
you have a problem.”
Added Davis: “You need guys
who don’t want the season to end.
What sometimes happens is you
have guys who are happy to make
the NCAA and then start looking
forward to the summer.
“You need guys who give it
everything they have, and some
times even that is not enough.”
Keady, who has never coached a
Final Four team, knows all about
that. Still, he’s had two squads
make the Elite Eight, close enough
for him to, like Moses, see the
“Promised Land” even if it meant
never making it.
“In the NCAA, you’re one and
done, so you really have to focus
and be cut in and respect every
one,” he said. “If you have that, if
you have tough kids and they’re all
on the same page, you don’t have to
have NBA talent to go a long way,
but those kinds of teams are rare.”
And then there’s the old-fash
ioned concept of having fun and
enjoying all the preparation (prac
tice, conditioning, team meetings,
the occasional in-your-face coach
ing tirade).
“The bottom line is, do you be
lieve in what’s going on?” Wiscon
sin coach Bo Ryan said. “Are you
having fun playing with your team
mates? Do you look forward to
practice and the next game? Is this
something you’re getting some
thing from?
“At times, the answers aren’t al
ways yes. But when they are, you
can do something special.”
Added Keady: “Chemistry is
more important than NBA-caliber
players.”
Monson led a lOth-seeded Gon
zaga team without a future NBA
player to the 1999 Elite Eight, los
ing to eventual national-champion
Connecticut 67-62. He stressed a
combination of factors-quality sen
iors, mental toughness and good
players-as necessary to make a
deep NCAA tourney run.
“You have to have good players
playing well at the right time,”
Monson said.
Add it up, Monson said, and you
have no clear strategy for NCAA
tourney success.
“If you’re looking for a blue
print,” he said, “I don’t think there
is one. It’s all about getting the right
combination at the right time.”
Perhaps Self’s blueprint is as
good as any.
“If you guard and rebound and
take care of the basketball, if your
team is focused, you have a good
chance to be successful.”
Class dismissed.
© 2002, The News-Sentinel (Fort Wayne,
Ind.). Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune
Information Services.
Adam Amato Emerald
Right: Luke Ridnour
earned a spot on the
AII-Pac-10 team this
year after being
named Pac-10
Freshman of the
Year in 2001.
|
|
Left: With Brian
Helquist injured,
Oregon center Chris |
Christoffersen (with
ball) will play extra
minutes in the Pac
10 Tournament,
which starts today in
Los Angeles.
Preview
continued from page 14
that may have saved head coach
Bob Bender’s job.
A month later, Wrenn scored 27
as Washington made the Ducks
earn a hard-fought 90-84 victory
that capped off Oregon’s 16-0 home
record. After the game, while the
Ducks were celebrating a perfect
season at McArthur Court, the
Huskies were proclaiming it a
moral victory and looking forward
to a potential rematch with the
Ducks at the Pac-10 Tournament.
“We match up well with them,”
Washington guard Curtis Allen told
reporters afterwards. “We’re just as
athletic as them. If we can get them
in L.A. that would be great.”
Allen and the Huskies have got
ten their wish. For them, this is the
only postseason they’ll see unless
they shock everybody and win
three games in three days to be
come the tournament champion.
“They played us tough both
games,” Oregon sophomore James
Davis said. “We know they have a
lot of confidence and have no fears.
That’s a scary thing. They have
nothing to lose, but I think if we
keep playing the way we’ve been
playing, we’ll come out on top.”
Since losing two overtime heart
breakers in the Bay Area, the Ducks
have won five straight, including
sweeping the Los Angeles schools
last weekend en route to becoming
the outright Pac-10 champs — Ore
gon’s first since 1939.
Oregon came back home after
last Saturday’s win at UCLA and
then flew back down to Los Ange
les on Tuesday evening. Should the
Ducks make it to Saturday’s Pac-10
Tournament title game (3 p.m.,
CBS], they would have played
three extra games that could possi
bly wear the team out before the fol
lowing week’s NCAA Tournament.
“Because of our depth, I don’t
worry about fatigue,” Kent said.
That depth, though, will be one
short this week, with back-up cen
ter Brian Helquist sitting out the
league tournament with a strained
right knee suffered in Oregon’s win
at USC. His status for the NCAA
Tournament is day-to-day.
“Jay (Anderson) and Mark
(Michaelis) did an excellent job in
the UCLA game with Brian out,
and the production they’re going
to give us this weekend is extreme
ly important,” Kent said. “And
Chris (Christoffersen) has to stay
out of foul trouble for hopefully
the entire game.”
If the Ducks do get past the pesky
Huskies, they’d play at 6 p.m. Fri
day against the winner of today’s
USC-Stanford game.
In a Pac-10 season where the top
six teams all finished just three
games apart — and with all six
most likely heading to the Big
Dance — this week’s tournament
promises to be exciting, and one
that should gain plenty of national
attention.
“What the season has created is
incredible interest in the confer
ence tournament,” Bender said.
“I think the Pac-10 has gotten a
lot of notoriety with how competi
tive it is,” Kent said. “It may
become one of the most competi
tive conference tournaments in
the country.”
Perhaps Oregon’s Davis said it
best when trying to predict what
will take place over the next three
days when talented, even-matched
teams go head-to-head.
' “I mean, dang, the Pac-lO’s
so tough,” Davis said. “You don’t
know. ’SC might do it. Stanford,
Arizona, all those are veteran
teams.
“It’s going to be a crazy tourna
ment.”
E-mail assistant sports editor Jeff Smith at
jeffsmith@dailyemerald.com.
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