4/5: One Shining Moment, part II
An earthquake in a place like New York City feels a bit like a rolling wave. A quick judder, two or three seconds long; then, a longer, more rolling shudder. That's how this morning's quake felt to me. I knew, almost instinctively, that it was an earthquake. I left my desk, heard people running down the stairs. Instead, I ducked under my dining room table.
Drop, cover, hold on; that's what you're supposed to do in a quake. After a few minutes, I got up, cleaned up the slight mess caused by the earthquake, and went outside, where folks were still giggling.
That's why I didn't email this morning. We had another aftershock (4.4 on the Richter scale; the one this morning was 4.8) around 6 this evening. Apparently, it's normal to experience them, but they're still unsettling.
Without further ado, here's my wrap on college basketball.
The NIT final last night was utterly entertaining. I'm a little gutted for the Indiana State Sycamores; they were up 77-70 with a minute and change to go, but this was a game of runs, and Seton Hall's Pirates buccaneered their way to the last one of the game, a 9-0 burst to win the title 79-77.
Both of these teams laid out. With any luck and sense, both of them should be in the NCAA tournament next season. Shaheen Holloway is one of the game's great young coaches; so's Josh Schertz. If Holloway stays at Seton Hall, he's going to turn them into a national power; I don't see Schertz staying at Indiana State, but part of me hopes that he turns them into a national power as well.
I've already previewed the women's Final Four games; now, let's turn to the men's Final Four.
Game 1: (1) Purdue vs (11) NC State (M)
Fascinatingly, both UConn and NC State's men's and women's teams are in the Final Four. I don't know that that's ever happened before. The women, long coached by the legendary Kay Yow, made their only other Final Four appearance in 1998; for the men, it's their first time there since winning it all in 1983.
You know that story. Jim Valvano, of blessed memory, running frantically all over the court. The lightly-regarded Wolfpack, stunning one team after another. If you haven't watched the ESPN 30 for 30 documentary on the team, do it; it's genuinely well done. It actually tells a nuanced story, and it's less of a hagiography than you'd imagine.
Tomorrow, this edition of the Wolfpack tries to replicate what their forebears did 41 years ago against Purdue. I don't think they'll be successful, but then again, the '83 Wolfpack weren't supposed to beat that season's version of Zach Edey (Virginia's Ralph Sampson) either, and they did it twice. To borrow a famous saying from soccer: the ball is round, the game is 40 minutes long, everything else is pure theory.
Prediction: Purdue 77, NC State 73
Game 2: (1) UConn vs (4) Alabama
This is legitimately the greatest, most terrifying basketball team I've seen since the 1990 UNLV Runnin' Rebels. I mentioned their devastating 30-0 run against Illinois in the Elite Eight, not just because it was staggering, but because you simply don't see that kind of outright domination at this point of the tournament.
You don't.
I said in my last email that the way Alabama plays sets them up to potentially upset Connecticut. It does! But the flip side of that, and I've also said this, is that in order to beat the Huskies, they have to play badly. I've yet to see any evidence of that in the four tournament games thus far. Alabama may play a great game tomorrow night; it's just that I also expect UConn to play well. That's not a recipe for an upset.
Prediction: UConn 91, Alabama 77
OK, I'll write Sunday morning-ish with my picks in the women's and men's finals.