A Season Inside (62 page)

And, of those three only North Carolina, with a remarkable eight-year string, had been this far more than three straight times. Looking at that last stat, one might conclude that Dean Smith was in the most successful coaching slump in history.

So, where once there had been just a Final Four there was now also a Great Eight and a Sweet Sixteen. No doubt the Thrilling Thirty-two and Special Sixty-four aren’t far behind. Nonetheless, to be among the last sixteen in a race that 291 started is no small achievement.

Four of the Sweet Sixteen were genuine surprises. Only in the West, where Arizona, Iowa, Michigan, and North Carolina had all advanced with ease, was there no need for any glass-slipper purchases.

In the East, there were two Cinderella types, Richmond and Rhode Island. The Spiders had followed up their “nonupset” of Indiana by beating Georgia Tech. In a way, this victory was even more surprising because the Yellow Jackets had lost to the Spiders in the regular season. But Richmond played another near-perfect game and sent Bobby Cremins home with his third straight NCAA disappointment. (That loss and a couple of recruiting defeats sent Cremins on a junior-college shopping spree. By April, he’d signed three JC transfers—and had basketball people wondering what direction the one-time boy wonder was heading in with his program.)

Rhode Island, after beating Missouri, had turned around and shocked Syracuse, building a big first-half lead, then hanging on for dear life. Syracuse’s season ended when Earl Duncan’s three-point shot, which would have tied the game, spun out at the buzzer. The four-year battle between Boeheim and center Rony Seikaly had finally ended. Each was delighted to be rid of the other, even though the relationship had been beneficial to both. Two weeks after his shot failed to drop, Earl Duncan announced he was dropping out of Syracuse to transfer.

In the Midwest, the surprise entry was Vanderbilt. C. M. Newton, at fifty-eight, is someone everyone in coaching respects and almost no one outside of coaching has ever heard of. Newton built the program at Alabama in the late 1960s and early 1970s, recruiting black players long before it was in vogue and making basketball something more than filler time between football seasons in Bear Bryant country.

He had now done a similar rebuilding job at Vanderbilt, taking high school players wanted by few other coaches and making them into standout college players. “C. M. hasn’t got any high school All-Americans on that team,” Don DeVoe commented, “but they sure play like they are.” Now they had played their way into the Sweet Sixteen.

And then there was Villanova. The Wildcats, to the amazement of
everyone but themselves, were in Birmingham along with the powerhouses: Oklahoma, Louisville, and their round-of-sixteen opponent, Kentucky. Their 66–63 victory over Illinois in the Thrilling Thirty-two was, in many ways, a microcosm of their season. Realistically, there was no way to pull this one off. But they found a way.

This was not your average upset. Late in the first half, Doug West went down hard, hit his head and suffered a concussion. It was not a serious go-to-the-hospital concussion but it was apparent, after West tried to come back in the second half, that he was woozy and couldn’t play. With West, beating Illinois would have been a major undertaking. Without him, it looked impossible.

This, of course, is where Pat Enright comes in. If anyone specialized in the impossible, it was Enright. His presence on the team was impossible to begin with—he
had
been cut twice and graduated once—but there he was. When West went down, Enright knew he was going to play more than just a run-in, run-out role. His reaction? Was he cool, ready to go, just dying for his chance?

“I was scared to death,” he said. “I sat there and looked around and there were seventeen thousand people in the place [including his parents and brother] and now I’m going to play a role, some kind of role in this game. I thought to myself, ‘Oh God, Pat, what have you gotten yourself into now?’ ”

But when the time came and Enright was in the game, his mind went blank. The crowd, the situation, the quality of the opponent, all went out of his head. The Wildcats were rallying from 14 points down, Illinois was missing free throws all over the place (the Illini only made 10 of 23 for the game), and Enright was out there instead of their best shooter when his team had to have points—and quickly.

He took one shot and missed badly. “Concentrate, stupid!” he told himself. Fear was replaced by anger—with himself. Mark Plansky and Tom Greis were leading the rally, but they needed help. A Plansky bucket cut the Illinois lead to 61–59 with a minute to go. The Illini missed at the other end and here came the Wildcats. The ball swung to Enright and this time he just did what he had been doing for years in practice, alone in his yard in the summer, on the schoolyard: He caught the ball, squared up and shot from outside the three-point line.
Swish!
Villanova led 62–61 with thirty seconds left. But Illinois came right back and scored to lead 63–62.

This time, the Wildcats went into the other corner to Plansky. He
head-faked and drew a foul with four seconds left. “I knew Mark would make at least one,” Enright said. “But I was scared if he only made one and we went into overtime we’d be in trouble with me in and Doug not in. I was praying he’d make ’em both.”

Plansky made ’em both. Another Illinois miss, one last foul and, amazingly, Villanova, down 14 with less than four minutes left, was in the Sweet Sixteen. “All the years I’ve watched and coached basketball, that was as fine an effort as I’ve ever seen,” Massimino said, drained but overjoyed. “I told the kids they had to earn this and today they certainly did.”

Later, when he looked back and thought about Enright’s role in the victory, Massimino just shook his head and said, “Can you believe that little schmuck is a hero?”

Kentucky was next. Wildcats versus Wildcats. This was exactly the kind of matchup Massimino craved. Not only was his team an underdog, it was facing a team so arrogant it did not believe it could lose. One of the first questions Massimino faced in Birmingham was, “How does it feel to have the chance to play a school with Kentucky’s great tradition?”

Massimino’s answer was brief: “We’re not exactly chopped liver.”

To Kentucky and its fans, that is about what Villanova was. The local papers were full of stories wondering whether Kentucky would play Oklahoma or Louisville in the regional final.

In truth, Kentucky was not a great team. It had won a close race for the Southeastern Conference title in a year when the SEC was not nearly as strong as it had been in recent years. The Wildcats were talented—they always are—but they weren’t overwhelming. The back-court was superb, with underrated senior Ed Davender and The Boy King, Rex Chapman. But Rob Lock was hardly frightening at center. Winston Bennett was solid and experienced but not scary at power forward. And Eric Manuel was a major talent, but still only a freshman. The bench was good but Coach Eddie Sutton hadn’t used it all that much during the year.

Villanova’s coaches looked at all the tapes, then showed them to the players. By Wednesday everyone was in agreement. “We play our game,” Enright said, “we definitely beat these guys.”

The coaches felt the same way. Oklahoma scared the hell out of
them, but Kentucky didn’t. Steve Lappas, who had been assigned to look at the Oklahoma tapes, kept walking out of his office groaning after watching the Sooners. “If we beat them,” he told John Olive, “it’s a bigger upset than when we beat Georgetown in ’85. They’re at least as talented—and now there’s a shot clock and a three-point line.”

Olive understood. “Lapp, we need to beat them just once. If we played them a hundred times could we beat them once?”

Lappas thought for a moment. “Maybe” was the best he could finally come up with.

There were no such thoughts concerning Kentucky. Respect, yes; fear, no. Either way, Massimino was having a great time. The national media—the ’Neers—were back. How did Rollie do it, everyone wanted to know. Rollie reveled in it, talked about the extended family of his team, the great kids, the graduation rate (100 percent) of his seniors. They told him he was a genius—and he certainly wasn’t going to contradict them. But when someone asked him the secret of his success, he smiled and told the truth: “Good players.”

As his team practiced on Wednesday, Massimino stood on the floor, looking around at the empty arena. “Hard to believe we’re back here again,” he said. “Hard to believe it was three years ago. We’ve gone 360 degrees in three years and touched every degree on the way around.”

Game day was hot, the temperature approaching 80 degrees. The players gathered for pregame meal shortly after two o’clock. They would eat steak. Massimino would eat nothing. “I went out to Church’s Fried Chicken a little while ago,” he said. “When I’m nervous, I get hungry and I can’t wait.”

Father Bernard Lazor was there to say the mass. Lazor has been the team’s chaplain for twelve years; he’d been through all the ups and downs with Massimino. Today, he had assigned a reading to Rollie, so when the coach walked to the front, he was handed a Bible to read from.

“Father,” Massimino said, “this isn’t what you wanted me to read.”

Lazor checked. “I’m on the wrong page,” he said, turning it.

“What’s-a-matter, Father,” Massimino asked, “you nervous?” The giggles were hardly suppressed.

Before he ended the mass, Lazor talked to the players about keeping things in perspective. “Remember where we were a year ago, fellas,” he said. “All we wanted was to get the season over with. We’ve had
a lot of glory and a lot of fun this week. But let’s not forget the pain we went through last year. The embarrassment and the humiliation. Whatever happens tonight, we’ve all come a long way from there. There’s no pressure in this, just fun.”

If the players were feeling any pressure, they sure didn’t show it. While Enright started the talent show, Massimino sat reading a registered letter he had received from a Kentucky fan. The letter was three pages long. In essence, it said, ‘Don’t bother showing up.’

“Listen to this,” Massimino said to his coaches, reading softly. “The guy says, ‘You’re in SEC country now and when you walk on the court you’re going to see how we can intimidate officials here in SEC land. You’re in with the big boys now.’ “Massimino was laughing when he reached the last line. It said, “Just remember one thing: Mules can’t outrun Secretariat and when it comes to college hoops, we are Secretariat.”

It was, of course, unsigned. Someone suggested Massimino read it to the players. He shook his head. “Nope,” he said, “there’s no need.”

By now, the players were into their rendition of “Under the Boardwalk.” Only they had rewritten the song in honor of Paul Vrind, the redshirt freshman from Holland. Now, the lyric was, “Under Paul’s Nose.” That was followed by a Massimino-led version of “Kansas City.”

One thing was certain, the mules were here to have a good time. One also suspects that there wasn’t any singing at Kentucky’s pregame meal.

The game was as close to perfect as a basketball game can be. Chapman was fabulous, making just about every shot imaginable, including a running one-hander on the baseline that he shot directly over the seven-foot-two-inch Greis. He did the impossible—actually living up to his press clippings, and finished with 29 points.

But the Boy King’s court could not keep up with the chopped liver mule team from Philadelphia. They played as if they were putting together a textbook on how to play tournament basketball. Wilson did a terrific job containing Davender, who on most nights was Kentucky’s most important player.

Everyone contributed. West, fully recovered from his concussion, led the way with 20 points. All five starters were in double figures. Gary Massey came off the bench to play excellent defense. The Wildcats took control late in the first half, going on a 14–3 binge during the last five minutes. Plansky hit two three-pointers, and West hit a pair of
jumpers. The half ended with West cleanly stripping Davender as he went up for a buzzer-beating jumper, and Villanova had a 43–32 lead.

There was little Massimino could say to his team. “You are an amazing team,” he said simply. “Just keep it up.”

The Big Bad Blue was in trouble. No doubt they would come back, though, and they did, led by Chapman. His jumper over Greis made it 55–48. Then Manuel, one-for-six in the first half, hit a three-pointer to cut it to 57–51. A moment later, with the lead still six, referee Paul Housman badly missed a call, taking away a West dunk and calling him for a charge. Replays showed the contact coming well after the shot
and
that the foul should have been on Lock. Massimino went wild.

But the players stayed calm. Plansky and Kenny Wilson hit buckets and then, after a Chapman three, Wilson answered with a three of his own. Kentucky just couldn’t get close. Every time they made a move, Villanova had an answer. “Nothing seemed to bother them,” Sutton said. “They just didn’t make any mistakes.”

The last nervous moment came after Chapman had stolen a pass and cut the lead to 72–67 with 3:10 left. Massimino called time to make sure his team took care of the ball and got a good shot. The shot clock was at three when Plansky caught a pass in the post, a bit further out than he wanted to be. He turned and shot from ten feet, banking the ball in just before the buzzer. “I called bank in the air,” he kidded later. Bank or no bank, that was the game.

The final was 80–74 but it could have been worse. Kentucky never got within five. The mules had outrun Secretariat and made it look easy. When the buzzer sounded, Chapman stood at center court, hands on his head, clearly in shock that his team had actually lost. Plansky, the only survivor of the ’85 championship team, stood holding the ball high in the air as the clock ran out.

“They called that team a Cinderella team,” he said. “There were three first-round draft choices on that team.
This
is what you call a Cinderella team.”

Cinderella was now one step from the big ball in Kansas City. But the last obstacle was Oklahoma, and it would take a one-in-a-hundred game (at least) to beat the Sooners. After the assistants watched Oklahoma beat Louisville, they knew the task was formidable. “We played a perfect game tonight,” Olive said. “We’ll have to play better on Saturday.”